Kim Howells: I certainly join my hon. Friend in praising the work in Lowestoft, especially by Hazel Johnson. It been a great achievement, and I am only too glad to look at the proposals from the town.

Kim Howells: As I understand it, the OECD has been complimentary about the fact that primary schools in this country have the best ever mathematics results, and we should celebrate that. The hon. Gentleman is quite right that we still have a long way to go, but we are making genuine progress.

Stephen Twigg: I am sorry that in the Chamber the hon. Gentleman is not following the constructive path that he followed in Committee when we considered the School Transport Bill, which will return to the House soon. As he knows, one in 10 children currently benefits from free school transport. The purpose of the Bill is to enable local communities, if they want to, to try new ways of providing school transport to more children. I believe we should be worried about the many, not the few. Once again, the hon. Gentleman is concerned only with the few, not the many.

Martin Smyth: Significantly, in Portcullis House there is a conference dealing with false allegations of abuse and what has happened in the courts over the years. We welcome the improvements and the commitment from police officers, but will the Minister consult with his colleagues throughout Government so that legislation might be brought in to safeguard children and teachers? It is important that in the youth service at large, those who devote themselves to teaching can be protected, as well as those whom they teach.

Tim Collins: What the Minister said about speeding up trials is welcome, and his remarks about the importance of preserving anonymity will also be welcomed by many teacher unions and their representatives. But he knows that they want more than simple guidance from ACPO and exhortations to the media from the Minister, so why will he not act on what the teacher unions have specifically requested; legislation to guarantee anonymity in those circumstances?

Phil Willis: We are generally supportive of the pilots and work-based training, but there is huge confusion among employers and in the FE sector about the future. Now that the windfall levy, which paid for most of the initial work, has gone, will the Minister confirm that future funding will come out of Learning and Skills Council adult budgets? What proportion of the learning and skills budget will be devoted to the national employer training programme, and what effect will that have on FE budgets? Finally, on the point made by the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Mr. Simon), what compensation package has the Minister agreed with the Chancellor to support small employers in particular in releasing people for training?

Ivan Lewis: I agree entirely with my hon. Friend. All these policies bring the worlds of work and of school closer together: specialist status for secondary schools; the new vocational pathways that we are developing; the flexible partnerships by which young people spend two days a week at school, two days a week at college and a day with local employers; enterprise education, which has become a mainstream part of the curriculum; and the new 14 to 16 young apprenticeship. In the future, we want a dynamic, day-by-day relationship that ensures that the choices that young people make about their curriculum are linked to the labour market and are based on authentic, real life contact with the world of work.

Margaret Hodge: The initial findings from the national evaluation of Sure Start's effect on children's speech and language development will be available in summer 2005. We know from individual Sure Start local programmes that the early support is having a positive impact. In one of the Stockport Sure Starts, for example, the number of children in reception classes with identified speech and language needs fell in successive years from 31 per cent. to 14 per cent. to 11 per cent. We also know from the comprehensive survey of more than 3,000 children published last week that two years of high quality pre-school education boosts children's results at key stage 1 by four to six months.

Nigel Evans: In my estimation, young people really are interested in international development and want to study it; many do so in their own private time with youth groups, church groups and various other organisations. I therefore encourage as much as possible the wider accessibility of learning about international development. I ask the Secretary of State look for ways further to assist young people in their gap years after school to enable them to go abroad to give assistance in the third and developing worlds, as Prince Harry did in Lesotho; clearly many of our young people do not have access to the resources that he has. Will the Secretary of State ensure that young people who want to go abroad are not prevented from doing so merely by lack of resources?

Charles Clarke: My hon. Friend is absolutely correct. I strongly commend the schools in his constituency that are doing this work. I have seen outstanding examples of such work, which is facilitated by the Global Gateway. I had a video conference with a school in Lagos, Nigeria that is working with a school in east London. It is exhilarating to see how people can begin to understand issues in this way and I commend it most strongly.

Stephen Twigg: My hon. Friend is right. In the past two years, there has been a disappointing, if small, increase in teenage conceptions, although there has been a significant fall, especially in conceptions among under-16s, across the four years of the strategy. We are now doing precisely what my hon. Friend suggests and focusing our attention especially on the hot spots; wards in the country that have particularly high levels of teenage pregnancy. Something like 50 per cent. of teenage conceptions happen in one in five local government wards. I am prepared to consider the available guidance in the way in which my hon. Friend suggests.

Charles Clarke: I am not in a position to make the exact comparison but I can give the comparison in real terms with the year 199798. In Nottinghamshire, the total recurrent funding for pupils aged three to 19 increased by 760 per pupil in real terms since 199798, with the effect that my hon. Friend described. Anybody who goes into schools would have to acknowledge the massive increase in resourcescapital spending as well as revenue spendingthat drives up educational standards. That is a major dividing line between the Government and the Government who we succeeded. I hope that everyone will bear that in mind when considering the choices that they have to make.

Charles Clarke: First, there is an announcement later on these matters, after the pre-Budget report. Obviously, my hon. Friend is right to make the case for Cambridgeshire as she does. In relation to Cambridgeshire, it is very important that schools there work well with the local authority, as there have sometimes been issues that have not been as straightforward as they might seem; I urge them to do that. In addition, I acknowledge her point that the increase in spending since 1997 in Cambridgeshire has been absolutely dramatic, and is raising significantly standards in schools in Cambridgeshire.

Ross Cranston: May I ask him how we make significant progress at level 2 and basic skills level so that we have the base to move on to level 3 attainment? In addition, may I ask him about a problem raised with me by Dudley college about funding? Will funding for level 2 crowd out funding for level 3; in particular, might employers be dissuaded from funding level 3 attainment?

Ivan Lewis: First, my hon. and learned Friend is absolutely right to make the point that we need to support progression all the way from basic skills to level 3. We were proud to announce only two weeks ago that we hit our target, so that 750,000 adults who did not have basic literacy, numeracy and language skills before we came to power have achieved those skills in the past few months, which is a major achievement. At the moment, we are trialling our level 2 entitlement in two regionsthe north-east and the south-eastwith a view to rolling that out across the country. We have already spoken this morning about employer training pilots.
	We are also committed to ensuring that where there is market failure in terms of regions or sectors of the economy, we would be willing to consider extending level 2 entitlement to 100 per cent. subsidy for level 3. But as a matter of principle, in relation to achieving level 3 qualifications, it is reasonable to expect, on the whole, a greater contribution from employers and individuals because, at that level, they have a direct gain and benefit. In relation to where we put the bulk of the Government's resources, it will go unashamedly into basic skills and level 2 qualifications. In terms of the needs of the economy, however, level 3 and higher qualifications are equally important, but we will expect a greater contribution from employers and individuals at that higher level.

Eric Illsley: At a recent event in my constituency hosted by the local chamber of commerce, we heard encouraging news about the initiatives that my hon. Friend has mentioned. However, one issue that was raised was the lack of basic skills among some school leavers and other young people going into the world of work. The situation is a little worse in my area, because for the first time for ages we have full employment. Will my hon. Friend bear in mind that we need to encourage better numeracy and literacy among young people going into employment?

Kim Howells: I agree that that is vital. I have visited some wonderful colleges of further education where 14-year-olds are at last waking up to learning. That is long overdue. Those young people have either excluded themselves or been excluded from school, or else school simply did not work for them. It is amazing to see them working on automobiles, welding or electronics.
	Those young people do not talk of basic skills or core skills; they talk of reading, writing and arithmetic. I have made a point of asking them what they think of having to do all that. They saythis is a wonderful thingWe do not like it, but if we did not do it they would not let us in here. That is a great trick, and it just might work. If so, we will see skills start to increase to the benefit of everyone, not least the economy.

Charles Hendry: Does the Minister agree that if we are to close the skills gap, it is vital for young people to be aware of the employment and career paths that are open to them and of what is required to gain access to those paths? Does he accept that while accessible careers advice from universities is fundamentally important, it is being compromised by being mixed up with other advice for young people through the Connexions service? Will he consider removing careers advice from Connexions, so that young people can be guaranteed the independent careers advice that they so badly need?

Kim Howells: I understand that we are reviewing all that, and will produce a Green Paper. The hon. Gentleman is right to raise the issue. I am amazed at the number of agencies out there; I have been trying to draw a map of them. I think that people are often confused by the sheer wealth of advice. We need to make the system much simpler, and I think that the review will be an interesting exercise.

Tony Lloyd: I agree that genuinely exciting things are happening in further education and in skills training generally, but our hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Education and Skills has mentioned market failure, and we know that there are bad and indifferent employers, and freeloading employers, who will not shoulder the burden of upskilling their work forces. It is vital for the country's future that we ensure that all involved play an active and proper part. Will my hon. Friend continue to monitor the skills gap, and ensure that the possibility of introducing an element of compulsion where necessary will not be ignored?

Harriet Harman: I would say to small businesses that they cannot get something for nothing and that if they see on the internet offers of huge sums without having to do anything, such offers are probably a scam. I am sure that he will welcome the new guidance on policing priorities for fraud cases that the Home Office sent out, which says that, even if the sum involved is small, if the effect on the small business victim is large, it should be a priority for police investigation and prosecution.

Gordon Brown: At the core of this pre-Budget report is the belief that the Britain of long-term economic strength will be: the Britain that at a time of rapid economic change and uncertainty locks in our economic stability for the long-term; the Britain that, as by 2015 Asia acquires a growing share of low-cost production, resolves to invest in high-value-added, high-technology manufacturing and services, and achieves world leadership in science and technology; and the Britain that, with enterprise and high-skilled jobs now the key to long-term prosperity, takes the tough decisions to achieve American levels of business creation and has, at every level, the best educated and most flexible work force in the world. In other words, it is a Britain of opportunity for all that, with this pre-Budget report's long-term measures to support families, ensures that every child and young person has the best start in life.
	I turn first to the measures to entrench stability. In last year's Budget I forecast growth for this year of between 3 and 3 per cent. When I made our forecast, the Leader of the Opposition said that it was not just wrong but a deliberate misrepresentation of Britain's economic position and that not to meet it would destroy credibility. I can report today to the House that growth this year will be, just as I forecast, above 3 per cent. 3 per cent. In other words, Britain will extend the longest period of uninterrupted growth in the industrial history of our country.
	Let me give the House the detailed figures. Even after the doubling of oil prices, inflation this year is 1 per cent. In any other decade, a 100 per cent. increase in oil prices, a 50 per cent. increase in industrial materials prices and a 70 per cent. increase in
	metal prices would have led to British inflation and British instability. But with continued and necessary discipline among wage bargainers in the private and public sector and with the resilience of the monetary and fiscal framework, inflation is expected to be just 1.75 per cent. next year and 2 per cent. in the years to follow.
	All policy makers will keep a close eye on continuing risks from global trade imbalances, from exchange rate movements and from an uneven world recovery, but with manufacturing output growing this year and next, British business investment is also expected to risethis year by 5 per cent. and next year by 4 to 4 per cent.
	With the expected moderation of house price inflation now under way and as export and industrial production strengthen, domestic demand, which has been growing by 4 per cent. this year, is expected to grow by 3 to 3per cent. in 2005; and we expect consumption to grow by 3 per cent. this year and by 2 to 2 per cent. in 2005.
	Overall domestic investment we expect to grow next year by 6 to 7 per cent. We expect exports to rise in line with world trade at more than 6 per cent. and, with inflationas I have saidbelow its target, growth overall is projected for 2005 at 3 to 3 per cent., in line with the average growth of G7 countries.
	We will remain vigilant to inflationary pressures, both globally and in Britain; but, Mr. Speaker, it is the success of the Bank of England's forward looking approach that is the key to sustaining growth with low inflation, just as since 1997 it has maintained both inflation and interest rates at historic low levels. The pre-Budget report shows that since 1997 interest rates have averaged 5.3 per cent. half the 10.4 per cent. average from 1979 to 1997. Mortgage rates have averaged 6.1 per cent since 1997, almost half the 11.4 per cent. average from 1979 to 1997.
	Since 1997, Britain has 1.2 million additional home owners, and as we take forward the Barker review and the Deputy Prime Minister publishes his five-year housing and sustainable communities strategy, we will also pilot mixed communities in deprived estates and, therefore, provide further support for first-time buyers in our country.
	Since 1997, mortgage rates have been lower than in any seven-year period since the 1960s. Interest rates have been lower than in any seven-year period since the early 1960s. Inflation has been lower than in any seven-year period since the 1930s. Employment has been higher than in any seven-year period since records began.
	Let me sum up for the benefit of the House.
	  Inflation is low. Unemployment is low. We're growing faster than many other European countries.
	That is not, Mr. Speaker, exaggerated gloating, but the words of the Leader of the Opposition, speaking to an employers federation only two weeks ago.
	The strength of our economy is matched by the strength that comes from the decisions we made after 1997 to cut our national debt. Yesterday, I was able to announce 520 million more for the special reserve for Iraq and our international obligations; and I thank our armed forces for their dedication and their courage. Having since 11 September doubled the budget to 2008 for security at home, I am also releasing today a further 105 million for necessary security measures to counter terrorism, to enhance surveillance at our ports and to improve civil resilience.
	The pre-Budget report also sets out detailed savings achieved of 2 billion in procurement; an additional one third of a billion saved in NHS drugs procurement; and, on target, the reduction of the first 9,000 civil service posts, as we implement the Gershon principles: a 21 billion efficiency saving that we have achieved while at the same time accepting his recommendation that to go beyond that figure of 21 billion could put the delivery of front-line services at risk.
	I can also announce the relocation of 1,230 Ministry of Defence posts from the south-east to Yorkshire; 2,300 Department of Work and Pensions posts to Liverpool, Wrexham and Newcastle; 600 from the Office for National Statistics to Wales; and 220 from the Revenue and Customs to Cardiff, Liverpool, Bournemouth, Truro and Manchester. Those are further steps on the way to a total, by 2010, of 20,000 civil service jobs relocated to our regions.
	Sir Michael Lyons is also setting out today departmental guidelines for the disposal by 2010 of 30 billion of public assets. And because there is scope for further rationalisation of public sector spectrum, I have asked Professor Martin Cave to lead an audit of public sector spectrum with the aim of releasing the maximum amount of spectrum to the market.
	Lower debt has meant that debt interest payments each year are 4 billion less than in 1997; and because we have more people in work than other countries75 per cent. of adults in work in Britain, compared to 71 per cent, in the United States, 69 per cent. in Japan and 65 per cent. in Germany and Francesocial security bills for unemployment are also down by 4 billion a year since 1997.
	Having previously set both the fiscal numbers and the detailed spending plans for the years 200508, the public finance projections I have set out today are based on our cautious view of trend growth in the years to 2010 and on public spending rising from 579 billion in 200708, to 606 billion in 200809 and then to 634 billion in 200910.
	When, in the Budget, I estimated borrowing for the year to April 2004 at 37.5 billion, some external commentators suggested that that was an underestimate. At the same point in the economic cycle 10 years ago, the equivalent figure was 90 billion, but I can report that our final outturn for the year to April is not 37.5 billion; it is 35 billion. And even after taking into account additional expenditure on defence and security, and other decisions that I will announce today, including on fuel duties and council tax, the cash figures for net borrowing for this year will fall to 34 billion, and in future years, fall further to 33 billion, falling again to 29 billion, then falling to 28 billion, 24 billion and 22 billion.
	The deficit in 2004 is 3.9 per cent. of GDP in Germany, 3.7 per cent. in France, 4.4 per cent. in America and 6.5 per cent. in Japan. In Britain, the figure is 2.9 per cent., and in future years, it will fall to 2.7, 2.2, 2 and 1.6 per cent., falling to 1.5 per cent. of GDP. For those who take an interest in these matters, it is well within the Maastricht criteria of the European Union.
	Our first fiscal rule is to balance the current budget over the economic cycle. For the years to 200910, the current balance is minus 13 billion, minus 7 billion, then plus 1 billion, plus 4 billion, plus 9 billion and plus 12 billion. So we are meeting our first fiscal rule in this economic cycle, and we will meet it in the next economic cycle, too.
	Our second rule is our sustainable investment rulethat we should borrow for investment, while keeping debt at a low and sustainable level. Because of the world downturn, debt has now risen to 45 per cent. of national income in France, 48 per cent. in America, 55 per cent. in Germany and 85 per cent. in Japan, but in Britain this year, our debt is 34.3 per cent. of our national income. In future years, it will be 35, 36, 36, 37 and 37 per cent., meeting at every point our rule that debt should be kept below 40 per cent. of national income.
	So with our deficits lower than our competitors, lower than in past decades, and with our debt lower than our competitors and lower than past decades, we are meeting both our fiscal rules: in this cycle, our first rule, with a margin of 8 billion and our second rule, with a margin of 59 billion, and we are therefore on course to meet both our rules in this cycle and in the next cycle, too.
	The measures that I now announce for this pre-Budget report are informed by the Treasury's assessment, published today, of long-term global economic challenges to 2015. To succeed in the global economy, Britain should build on our strengthsour stability, our scientific genius and our world-class universities and our global reachwith a concerted national mission to invest long term and establish world leadership in science, education and skills, and enterprise.
	To build on our new 10-year science framework and the 2.5 billion investment in science and to make Britain the best place for research and development, we will continue our reforms to re-examine the R and D tax credit for mid-sized science-based firms; to remove tax barriers to the formation of university spin-off companies; and to pilot a matched-funding scheme to help universities to build up their resources through new endowments. To benchmark progress in raising business R and D, we will establish an industry-led science forum chaired by the chief executive of AstraZeneca, Sir Tom McKillop, and as part of their 100 million technology investment programme, the northern regional development agencies are together announcing that they will promote science cities for the north, starting with Manchester, Newcastle and then York.
	By 2015, Asia will be responsible for as much as 25 per cent. of world trade, yet, today, only 1 per cent. of British exports go to India and only 1 per cent. of our exports go to China. So having set an objective to build trade links with Asia that match those that we have with America and Europe, we propose that the China-UK financial dialogue now expand its role, with enhanced private sector participation, and that the new UK-India dialogue is also broadened to include private business. And a new Asia taskforce will bring together experts to focus on boosting British exports to, and investment in, Asian countries in the years to come.
	In the years to 2015, the greatest number of new jobs will come from a larger number of small businesses, and that is why we must achieve American rates of business creation and success.
	For long-term investments, I have already reduced capital gains tax from 40p to 10p. I have cut corporation tax from 33p to 30p and cut small business tax from 23p to 19p. We will legislate for tax relief for the renovation of empty business premises in our 2,000 enterprise areas, and through deregulation and self-certification of business angels we will remove barriers to high net-worth investors, enabling them to invest directly in small businesses. We will align the tax treatment of leasing with other forms of finance. For new and ambitious start-ups and high-growth businesses, we have asked the development agencies to make available in every region tailored coaching and support. Building on the success of Britain's first ever national enterprise week, detailed guidance is being issued for schools on the content of enterprise lessons.
	In recent Budgets, we have removed the independent audit requirement on small firms, introduced a simplified VAT flat-rate payment scheme, and I am today publishing the interim report of Philip Hampton on rationalising inspection and enforcement regimes. Having concluded that outside high-risk areas, the regulatory focus should be on advice, not inspection, and that data-sharing should avoid duplication of requirements on business, his final report will include recommendations to reform the regulators charged with inspection and enforcement and to reform the penalty regimes.
	In parallel, the new executive chairman of the Inland Revenue and Customs and Excise, David Varney, is also today announcing the creation of a small business unit, consulting on the scope for a single tax return that would bring together all taxes, and setting as his long-term objective a single account for payments by business.
	I am also announcing further detailed reforms that include deregulation in the financial services industry and common commencement dates from 2005 for all new health and safety, company and consumer legislation. Building on what the Foreign Secretary has already announced, he is setting out new rules guiding implementation of European Union regulations.
	In the coming decades, as populations age and the dependency ratio grows, the most successful economies will be those that encourage the maximum number of people of working age into the labour market. Alongside greater local and regional pay flexibility, the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions and I agree that it is time to do more to attract into the work force incapacity benefit recipients with the capacity to work and lone parents who at the moment are not able to work.
	By extending our successful in-work credit, 250,000 lone parents throughout our country will be offered a 40 a weekthat is 2,000 a year first-year return-to-work bonus. Incapacity benefit claimants, under the successful pathways to work scheme, will have a 40 a week return-to-work credit allied to rehabilitation help, which has been the most effective way of helping incapacity benefit claimants into work. This will now cover a third of the country, on the road to making this a nationwide offer. We will build on successful experience by also locating employment advisers in GPs' surgeries. We are allocating today 30 million more to expand the numbers who can benefit from the new deal for disabled people.
	To make work pay, I am also raising the national minimum income guarantee for a single earner couple with one child to a guaranteed income in work of 258 a week, and a lone parent working part-time with one child on the minimum income guarantee will receive 199 a week, the equivalent in work of 12 an hour.
	With unemployment among ethnic minorities still twice that of the rest of the population, and the proportion in work just 59 per cent., I have asked the National Employment Panel, working with the Ethnic Minority Business Forum, to report by Budget time on measures to address what is a waste of potential by encouraging employment, self-employment and the growth of small businesses.
	Because of the environmental challenges that all nations confront, our 2005 G8 presidency is going to give priority to climate change. It is the view of this Government that all industrialised nationsfrom the smallest to the largestmust accept their responsibilities and each must bear its share of the burden in reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
	Oil prices have declined from the peak of $50 a barrel, and today are $42. They are well above the long-run average of $23, and they make promotion of energy efficiency and alternative lower carbon sources of energy far more urgent. For Britain's part, the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs is going to review the innovative technologies and policies that can deliver that step change in energy efficiency. As a first step, she is announcing today measures to accelerate innovation in energy efficient technologies, with the creation of a development fund of 20 million managed by the Carbon Trust.
	It is our policy that, each year, fuel duties should rise at least in line with inflation as we seek to meet our targets for reducing polluting emissions and fund our public services. But this financial year, because of the sustained volatility in the oil market, I propose to match the freeze in car vehicle licence duty with a continuation of the freeze on the main road fuel duties. While we will not set a duty differential this year for sulphur-free fuels, we will go ahead with the 20p per litre lower duty differential for bioethanol on 1 January 2005, matching the equivalent differential for biodiesel. Because of oils fraud and the tax evasion that has resulted from the lower rate of duty for rebated oils, it is not right to delay the planned increase on this duty, but I will set it not at the expected 2.4p per litre but at just 1p a litre.
	Further anti-avoidance measures published in detail today include action against avoidance on contrived remuneration arrangements, on financial and international transactions, on VAT and on the abuse of the 1992 film tax legislation.
	The limit on the value of overseas purchases from outside the European Union, brought back into this country through customs duty and tax free, has been set by the European Union at 145, excluding alcohol, tobacco and perfume. I have written today to the European Commission and member states stating that this limit was last revised in 1994, is now out of date and that we should now raise it.
	With the Africa Commission reporting next year and with the focus for our G8 presidency on debt relief and development, the Secretary of State for International Development and I have written to G8 Finance Ministers saying that our priorities for 2005 will be to institute the international finance facility; 100 per cent. multilateral debt relief; to develop the development round in trade; and, as the second largest donor in the fight against HIV/AIDS, to maximise efforts to develop an infrastructure for co-ordinating research for a cure for AIDS, increase funding for AIDS research and develop innovative advance purchasing agreements for drugs for both AIDS and malariaBritain making its G8 presidency count to meet the needs of the developing world.
	Also, 2005 is the year of the volunteer. To encourage voluntary work, the Home Secretary and I are ready to take forward the Russell commission's proposals for a national youth volunteering and community service. I will report back in the Budget.
	The long-term review of English local government finance under Sir Michael Lyons will report next year, but it is also right to take action where there are immediate pressures this year. In order that English council tax rises will be substantially below last year's 5.9 per cent., I am able to release the following: an extra 125 million resources for England, alongside 521 million reallocated to local councils from Government Departments and a further one third of a billion reallocated from the reduction in ring-fencing and other obligationsin total 1 billion to reduce pressures on the council tax. The Minister for Local and Regional Government will later this afternoon give full details, including on the position of pensioners.
	Since 1997, 1 million pensioners have been lifted out of poverty. Raising the basic state pension by earnings would have provided an average of 5 a week more for the poorest pensioners. But the pension credit and our other measures have ensured that many are over 40 a week better off. I can confirm that, next year and in the spending round, the pension credit will rise faster than inflationby average earningsmeeting our obligation to take hundreds of thousands of pensioners out of poverty in this country.
	To help savers, it is right to extend the tax free advantages for the first 7,000 of savings3,000 for the cash componentin individual savings accounts each year. So I am consulting, prior to the Budget, on extending the ISA limit for another five years to 2009. We will proceed from April with the low cost savings and investment products recommended by the Sandler report, and we will now extend our savings gatewaythe scheme where the Government match the savings of low-income familiesto a wider range of income groups.
	Two million families still have no bank account. It costs them more to pay their bills, credit costs more and it makes it harder for them to do many things, including, on some occasions, getting a job. I can announce that the banks and Government have agreed to work together to reduce by half the number of families without bank accounts. To expedite this, we are setting aside 120 million to tackle financial exclusion, including more face-to-face money advice, supporting local citizens advice bureaux, support for not-for-profit lenders and with the possible extension of the community investment tax relief.
	Our child trust fund will build savings and wealth for every child in the country. In addition to the 250 and 500 down payments that families will receive early next year, we will now consult on extending the child trust fund so that, at the age of seven, we add to the 250 and 500 with another 250 and another 500 for the poorest child in poverty. I hope that, given the long-term commitment that this proposal involves to invest in every child in our country, every political party in the House will now support the child trust fund.
	It is because of sustained growth and, after 1997, the prudent reduction of debt and debt interest payments that we can make extra resources today available to local authorities, we can meet the costs of Iraq and the fight against terrorism, we can freeze fuel duties to deal with the impact of the oil price rise, do more to equip the country for the challenges of the long term and are still able to meet all our fiscal rules, with levels of debt and deficit below all our main competitors.
	Within the overall fiscal figures, I am now also able to move forward our long-term agenda for opportunity for all: to make Britain ready to meet the global challenge by moving people from low-skilled jobs to high-skilled jobs, with a new programme to improve skills and employment in our country and to ensure opportunity for every child while meeting the demands of modern family lifea 10-year child care strategy for Britain.
	Since 1997, with education maintenance allowances, modern apprenticeships and the new deal, our priority has been to ensure that no teenager in the United Kingdom after 16 should be outside employment, training or education. With the Queen's Speech legislation to extend benefits to teenagers staying on in unwaged training as well as in college or school, we are removing from teenagers the remaining financial barriers so that every young person can stay on in education or training after 16 to get the qualifications that they need.
	But we know also that 80 per cent. of the 2015 work force have already left school and are in the world of work, and it is their skill levels and their qualifications that will, over the next decade, determine the prosperity of our country. So a policy of opportunity for all must provide opportunity for those who have missed out and who should, in the economic interests of the country, have a second chance.
	Today 30 per cent. of employees have very low skills or no skills at all. We have, unfortunately, the highest proportion of unskilled of any major European Union country. The unskilled worker is four times less likely to be offered training in work than the highly qualified. For decades, low skills have been an Achilles heel of Britain as a modern economy and the post-war laissez-faire training system has not, and will not, meet the skills needs of our future.
	Learning from successful training policies among our European competitors and building on the 100,000 individual success stories of those given time off for training through what have been called the employer training pilots in Britainthe majority who have benefited from them are women, the majority of them have no prior skills and the vast majority of them successfully attain their qualificationswe are able to announce today their roll out to the whole country, creating for the first time in Britain a national employer training programme, with employers recognising their responsibilities to offer time off, employees recognising their responsibilities to take up the opportunities and the Government recognising our responsibilities to play a part in funding the training.
	Since the Budget, lower spending on unemployment has released resources, which means that, together with additional money reallocated by the Secretary of State for Education and Skills, the funds are now available for every employer to make an offer to every adult employee without skills. In future, every adult who has missed out at school will have the funds and the opportunity to acquire skills, starting with a level 2 qualification equivalent to GCSEs at A to C, through time off, free training provision and the help on offer from employers.
	With that national employer training programme, combined with the new deal for skills, the offer is for every adult without skills, in or out of work: a skills check-up, and free training provision to achieve level 2 qualifications. And to extend this offer more widely to the unskilled out of work and on benefit who, up until now have been debarred from training by the 16-hour rule, we propose to pilot an additional 10 a week learning allowance.
	Britain's future as a productive nation depends on a shared determination, from parents and teachers to management and trades unionists, that the acquisition of skills by all and their continuous upgrading is a shared national purpose. In furtherance of this, the Secretary of State for Education and Skills and I have asked the chairman of the National Employment Panel, Sandy Leitch, to build on today's decisions, report on the long-term skills needs for intermediate and degree level skills in the economy, and work with employers throughout the country to ensure that every employee is offered those new opportunities.
	The successful economies and societies of the next 20 years[Interruption.] They have some rethinking to do. The successful economies and societies of the next 20 years will also invest in the potential of all children. We want to transform the way parents are enabled to balance work and family life. A long-term strategy for children and child care starts from recognising two facts of modern life: that the life chances of children are critically determined by the care, support and education they can receive in the years before five as well as after five; and that while 50 years ago less than a third of married women were working, today over two thirds of two-parent families have two earners striving to balance the needs of work and family life. The Government's response to this new reality must start from the enduring principles of the Beveridge report: that the family is the bedrock of society; that nothing should be done to remove from parents their responsibilities to their children; and it is in the national interest to help parents meet their responsibilities.
	As part of the new 10-year framework that we are announcing today, the Government set out and make the choice to allocate funds for new reforms in the coming Parliament. First, parents should be able to stay at home longer when their child is born and have the means to do so; secondly, parents should enjoy more flexibility in the workplace when their child is young; thirdly, parents should be guaranteed more accessible, affordable and safe child care while they are at work; and, fourthly, at all times their children, no matter what their background, should enjoy the highest-quality education and carea welfare state that is truly family friendly for the first time in its history.
	The first choice that parents want is more choice to stay at home. Building on the extension of maternity leave from 18 to 26 weeks, the increase in maternity pay from 56 a week to more than 100, and the introduction of two weeks' paid paternity leave already in this Parliament, we will for the first time respond to the case made to us for greater choice, and we will make paid maternity leave transferable from mothers to fathers. Parents want more flexibility to be with their children not just in the infant years but as their children grow up, so the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry will consult on extending what has been the successful right to request flexible working, which has already helped 800,000 parents, to parents of older children, again creating more choice and more flexibility for today's parents.
	Secondly, having taken the best educational advice about the learning needs of children, and building on the successful introduction of free nursery education this year for three and four-year-olds, the Secretary of State for Education and Skills and the Minister for Children will, from April 2007, extend our free nursery education to 15 hours a week, as we move towards our long-term goal of 20 hours of free nursery care for 38 weeks a year for every three and four-year-old child.
	Thirdly, improvements in the availability, affordability and quality of pre-school and after-school child care are indeed required to meet the needs of working parents struggling to balance the demands of employment and of family life, so the Secretary of State for Education and Skills is today setting aside additional resources to enable schools to remain open from 8 am to 6 pm and to improve the quality and career prospects of those who undertake child care. It is right that parents make a contribution towards out-of-school child care costs, but it is also right, in the interests of both the economy and parents, that we do more for all parents. From April, employers will be able to offer employees, right up the income range, 50 a week extra for child care free of any tax or national insurance. For those on lower and middle incomes we will raise and extend the child care tax credit. It will cover up to 80 per cent. of child care costs, up to 170 a week for the first child and 300 for two or more children, benefiting families on incomes up to 59,000 a year. For a two-earner household on median earnings of 34,000 with typical child care costs, it will be worth an extra 700 a year.
	Our fourth goal is that every child should have the best start in life. There are now 600 Sure Start children's centres, and anyone who has visited them knows that they provide not just children's services but a great focus for community life. By 2008, instead of 600 centres we plan 2,500; and today I can go further and announce that by 2010 in England alone there will be 3,500one for every community, and on average five children's centres in every constituency in the country. As a result of these announcements there will be another 1 million new child care places by 2010. That is a commitment to children and child care worth in total 600 million more by 200708money that could not be delivered if public spending plans were cut by 35 billion.
	I have one further announcement to make for families. So that mothers and fathers can spend more time at home with their young children, I am today allocating 285 million, so that from April 2007 we will extend paid maternity leave. Instead of the four and a half months maximum in 1997, it will rise from six months today to nine months, and we will set a goal of an entire year of paid maternity leave. I can also announce that where the maximum maternity pay and child benefits for mothers at home with their first baby in 1997 was just 2,610 for the first year, it will rise by 2007 to 8,300. Even after inflation that is 5,000 morethe most generous maternity support and support for young children ever in the history of our country.
	A society is judged by its generosity to its children and the elderly, who have served the community all their lives. I can also announce that next year, at a cost of an additional 260 million, for those over 70 we will add to the winter fuel payment with an additional 50 payment. Pensioners aged over 70 will receive a total of 250, and pensioners over 80 will receive a total of 350.
	Stability is the foundation; more investment, not less; now and into the next Parliament; opportunity not just for some but for all and a progressive Britain we can be proud of. I commend this statement to the House.

Gordon Brown: The hon. Gentleman has predicted doom and gloom for the Scottish economy at every point since 1997. He must face up to the fact that employment, growth and living standards in Scotland are up, that more people own their homes in Scotland, and that more people In Scotland are getting skills, and more are going to universities and colleges. That is the result not of Scottish National party policy, but of the Labour Administration in the Scottish Parliament and the Labour Administration in the UK.

Gordon Brown: I respect the work of customs officers and Inland Revenue officials and pay tribute to their work securing our ports and, along with Inland Revenue inspectors and tax collectors, ensuring that revenue flows to the Exchequer. Partly because of new technology, however, David Varney's proposals to bring together the Inland Revenue and Customs and Excise will cut the gross number of jobs by 16,000. By redeploying some of the people in the Inland Revenue and Customs and Excise, the final figure will 13,500. That decision is right, because it means that more resources will go to other front-line public services.
	I hope that my hon. Friend understands that as we expand health, education and the other public services, it is necessary, where new technology gives us the opportunity to do so, to change employment patterns. Although the Gershon proposal of 84,000 jobs is a very big number, it is a necessary means by which we can build a modern set of public services and get the resources to the front line.

Gordon Brown: That is a bit rich, given that the right hon. Gentleman was a Minister in the Conservative Government. We have opened up the auditing of public spending and revenue assumptions far more widely than they were ever prepared to do, and called in the National Audit Office to help us, which the Conservatives never did. He tells us that we must do more in this regard, yet he was not prepared to do anything.
	As for the position on revenues, the right hon. Gentleman will see in the published documents that because of rising employment and growth in the economy, revenues from income tax and VAT have risen, and that in key areas revenues from corporation tax have risen according to forecast. We will have to consider other areas over the next few months. He will also find that although the former shadow Chief Secretary said yesterday that the borrowing figures would be around 40 billion, if I remember him rightly, in fact they are below 35 billion, at 34 billion. The shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions said at the Dispatch Box yesterday that the borrowing figures would be deteriorating, but they are improving every year.

Robert Smith: Earlier, in answer to Conservative Front Benchers, the Chancellor rightly reminded the House about the disaster of the poll tax. Not only was it unfair, but it collapsed, partly because it involved an attempt to construct a register of the population, and where everyone lived, on a daily basis. Does the right hon. Gentleman not recognise that many of our constituents, who are already suffering at the Government's hands through their handling of tax credits and the Child Support Agency computer system, will believe that the 5.5 billion that he is setting aside for identity cards would be better spent now on front-line security, to provide better security by having more police and better border controls?

Nick Raynsford: With permission, Madam Deputy Speaker, I should like to make a statement about local authority revenue finance for England in 200506.
	The settlement that I am announcing for 200506 will be the eighth successive one in which we have provided local government with grant increases above inflation. That is a real terms increase of 33 per cent. over the past eight years, which contrasts with a 7 per cent. real terms cut in the last four years of the previous Government.
	Total support from Government grant and business rates in 200506 will be 60.1 billion. That is 3.5 billion, or 6.2 per cent., more than in 200405. It contrasts with a total of just 35.9 billion in 19979 8, in the last settlement announced by the Conservative party. The total of 60.1 billion includes 26.7 billion of revenue support grant, 18 billion of business rates, 4.3 billion in police grant and 11.1 billion in specific grants. Of those totals, 49 billion will be distributed by formula to local authoritiesan increase of 2.6 billion, or 5.6 per cent. I shall announce the detailed allocations today.
	The figures include the extra provision to help local government meet pressures at reasonable council tax cost that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced earlier. They demonstrate the Government's continuing commitment to both local government and council tax payers.
	I can confirm that we propose no changes in the grant distribution formulae for 200506. That is consistent with the formula freeze that we announced for three years from 200304. It provides councils with a measure of stability, which is essential for forward planning.
	I have already referred to the totals available in specific grants. They perform a valuable role in, for example, targeting funds in a way that the main formula cannot. We are bringing forward the announcement of the allocation of many of those grants to help councils plan ahead with more confidence.
	For several years, we have applied guaranteed minimum grant increasesfloorsand upper limits on grant increases, known as ceilings, to help pay for floors. Floors are well accepted. Unlike the position when the Conservative party was in power, councils are no longer faced with losing grant from one year to the next. There is no wish to do away with the floor mechanism but there has been lively debate about how the cost of the floor is to be paid.
	Let me be plain. The cost has to be found within the total of grant available, and it follows that if authorities that would otherwise receive less than the floor are to benefit from enhanced grants, the remaining authorities with larger grant increases must contribute.
	Over recent years, we have operated a system of ceilings, putting a maximum limit on grant increases, thereby ensuring that those authorities due to receive the largest increases contributed most to the cost of the floors. However, I have been impressed by the arguments put by authorities, especially in areas with rapidly growing populations, that imposing a ceiling is especially hard on them as they are never likely to receive the additional grant that a rising population, and hence rising pressure on services, would otherwise provide for them. Having said that, exempting population growth areas from ceilings would not be the best approach, as it would be bedevilled by arguments about exactly where to draw the line.
	I have therefore concluded that we should abolish the grant ceiling. Floors will be financed entirely by scaling back grant increase above the floor. All authorities above the floor will make a contribution, but none as great as the ceiling authorities used to make.
	For 200506, the grant floors will be as follows: for authorities with education and social services responsibilities, 4 per cent.; for shire district councils, 2.5 per cent.; for fire authorities, 2.5 per cent.; and for police authorities, 3.75 per cent. For the third consecutive year, every authority in England will receive an above-inflation increase on a like for like basis.
	As in previous years, we will adjust the floor scheme to provide support to authorities with increased levels of capital investment as a result of new capital allocations issued by the Government. We will also, this year, adjust the floor scheme to provide protection for councils that lose grant under the amending report for 200304.
	We will, as we did last year, ensure that every authority with education responsibilities receives an increase in its formula grant at least as large as the increase in its schools formula spending share. Again, as last year, we will expect all authorities to pass their schools FSS increase on to their schools budget other than in wholly exceptional circumstances. We have adjusted the FSS totals within the planned total to reduce the pressure of passporting and to increase growth in the environmental, protective and cultural services block, in recognition of the importance of the local services covered by it.
	We are rigorously applying the principle that, if Government policies impose new spending burdens on local government, Government will make provision to fund them.
	The Government are more than doubling our contribution to the cost of local authorities' civil protection activities from 200506. That will significantly enhance the capacity of local authorities to respond to a wide range of emergencies, whether caused by natural disasters, accidents or terrorism.
	We listen carefully to local authorities' views on the costs of implementing new initiatives and act on them where appropriate. In response to concerns expressed by local authorities on the fee levels of the new licensing scheme, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport has agreed a substantial increase in earlier estimates, and the latest proposals are now out to consultation. She has also given an undertaking that there will be an independent review 12 months after the new regime has become fully operational.
	From April 2005, authorities will be given further opportunities to increase locally raised revenue through the local authority business growth incentives scheme. That allows authorities to retain a proportion of growth in business rate revenue, with total freedom to spend this on locally determined priorities. It comes on top of the substantial additional freedoms extended to local authorities, including the prudential borrowing regime, new freedoms to trade and to charge for discretionary services, and continued reduction in ring-fencing in 200506, which will see ring-fenced grants fall to below 9 per cent. as a proportion of overall Government grant, which is even better than I promised last year.
	A number of councils have expressed concerns that they are facing a substantial increase in pension contributions. We have listened to their concerns, agreed to amend regulations to ease certain pressures, and issued advice to enable them to manage the outcome of the 2004 actuarial revaluation in the most effective way over the next three years.
	In common with the rest of the public sector, councils need to be remorseless in the pursuit of efficiency. Following the Gershon review, the Government have set a target across the whole of the public sector to deliver more than 20 billion of efficiency gains a year by 200708. Local government is expected to contribute significantly to that, delivering at least 6.45 billion of efficiency gains. However, we believe that higher gains are attainable by local authorities, and Departments will work in partnership with them to help to achieve maximum efficiencies. This is a win-win scenario, as efficiency gains will be retained locally and can be used for reinvestment in front-line services.
	With substantial additional funding, real scope for efficiency gains, and the additional flexibilities that I have outlined for councils, there is no excuse for authorities to set excessive increases in council tax. The average increase in council tax in 200405 was 5.9 per cent. Although that was less than half the previous year's increase, and the lowest in almost a decade, there is still considerable scope for authorities to do better. We expect to see substantially lower increases next year, with a national average increase of less than 5 per cent.
	The Government used our reserve capping powers for the first time this year to deal with excessive increases. We will continue to use those powers to ensure that council tax payers do not face unacceptable increases. We are prepared to take even tougher action in 200506. That applies to all authorities, including police and fire authorities.
	We will continue to support local authorities in promoting take-up of council tax benefit. We are including information about the benefit in this year's winter fuel payment letters, which go out to about 8 million households, and we are following that up with regional and national press advertising. We will also encourage local authorities to include clear information about council tax benefit with council tax bills and, where appropriate, a simple coupon to return indicating a wish to claim benefit. Looking ahead, my colleagues in the Department for Work and Pensions are developing proposals to streamline the claims process for pensioners when more than one benefit is claimed, so that they do not have to provide the same information twice.
	As my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer has announced today, the Government will repeat next year our help for pensioners aged 70 or older, by giving them a 50 payment to help them with their council tax bills. The amount reflects the fact that we expect a substantially lower average increase in council tax next year.
	The Government have demonstrated our continued commitment to local government. We have increased investment year on year: 24.2 billion since 199798, and a further 3.5 billion this year. We have ensured once again that every council has an above-average increase in formula grant. We have given councils more opportunity and flexibility to raise and deploy local resources to meet their priority needs. In return, we expect, and all taxpayers expect, that local government will continue to deliver improving services at an affordable cost. If they do not, we are prepared to take tougher capping action. I commend the settlement to the House.

Eric Pickles: I thank the right hon. Gentleman for early sight of his statement and of the accompanying documents. Such release of information is entirely typical of him, and it makes for much better debate.
	Over the past four weeks, I have been due to share a platform with the right hon. Gentleman or other Ministers on no less than three occasions. Each time, the relevant Minister has cried off at the last minute, because of some reversal of the Government's fortunes, much to the disappointment of the audience and myself. Given the nature of the Chancellor's financial allocation to local government, I am sure that the whole House will share my relief in finding the Minister in his customary place today. Who would have blamed him if he had decided to absent himself? Indeed, the Deputy Prime Minister has sought to create as much physical distance as possible between himself and today's statement by travelling to China. That seems a little excessive, but it is no doubt a comfort to the great man.
	This statement is nothing more than a poor attempt to paper over the cracks of a crumbling council tax policy, a fiddled financial settlement and an abandoned balance of funding strategy. It is a dawn raid masquerading as a strategy. So ill thought-out are the measures that they have provoked a senior Government official, in the pages of today's Financial Times, to use a four-letter word to describe the measures, and pejoratively to invite the Government to depart. I am sure that that anonymous mandarin, in both his choice of words and his sentiment, speaks for the whole nationin spades.
	The record clearly shows that the Opposition have been more accurate in predicting levels of council tax than the Government. The Government's winter boasts are soon drowned out by April misery for the taxpayer. I have with me a full list of the Labour Government's predictions on the adequacy of the settlement, and the folly that they produced. I shall let just one speak for the many. Last year, on the settlement, the Minister said:
	We have provided a good settlement, on the basis of which local authorities can plan for future improvements in services without unreasonable increases in council tax. [Official Report, House of Commons, 19 November 2003; Vol. 413, c. 789.]
	That settlement did not even have to wait until the spring to be proved inadequate. In a few short weeks, the Chancellor had to bung in an extra 340 million. What is the status of that 340 million? Has it been carried forward to next year? If so, given that 350 million relates to ring-fencing, the Chancellor's 1 billion bung begins to look very smallit begins to look like about 250 million.
	Last year, because of the Government's insistence on passing on increases to schoolswhich they are repeating this year14 local authorities were left with no additional money for their other services. Will that be repeated next year, and how many councils will be affected? The Minister can talk all he likes about floors and ceilings, but he cannot hide the fact that under his Government council tax has gone through the roof. Further unbearable increases are in the pipeline as a direct result of this settlement.
	In its small print, the July review predicted that the locally financed council tax element of local government would increase from 18.6 billion in 2004 to 19.8 billion. That represents an increase of 6.7 per cent., or three times the rate of inflation. Will the Minister confirm that on page 209 of the Chancellor's pre-Budget report, issued today, council tax receipts are projected to soar by 1.6 billion? Will he confirm that page 23 forecasts inflation at 1.75 per cent.? We are looking at an increase in council tax receipts over four times the rate of inflation.
	The change in council tax receipts clearly mirrors the increase in council tax demand. Since 1997, receipts have risen by 80 per cent., and in England council tax has risen by 70 per cent. The figures clearly marry.
	The settlement does not seem to recognise the unavoidable pressure on local authorities. The Local Government Association has measured it at about 1 billion. Let us examine three pressure areas. The Minister referred to certain pressures on pensions. His solution is to try and put it off for a couple of years; but how are local authorities to manage with pension costs due to rise next year by an extra 300 million, and the year after by an extra 900 million? Pressure from the growth in waste levels, waste taxation and waste legislation will cause costs to escalate from 225 million this year to 480 million next year.
	Do the Government really want Hampshire to raise council tax by 4 million, Devon to raise it by 4.4 million or Tandridge to raise it by 2.2 per cent.? Perhaps they do, as much of the money will go straight back to them.
	There will also be more children receiving social care. The Children Act 2004 places additional burdens on authorities. Why are the Government not making adequate plans to meet the growth in children's services with an increase from 94 million next year to 587 million in 2007?
	Local government leaders have long argued that the retail prices index is an inappropriate measure to gauge local costs. On 24 June, the Local Government Association met the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, who agreed to start work on a price index for local government. What progress has been made so far?
	Then there is the question of the census. The amending revenue support grant report for 200304 was published on 18 November, but the issuing of the report for 200405 has been postponed until next year to ensure that all possible revisions of the data used in the 200405 settlement will be included.
	The House will rejoice at the recognition of the disservice done to the Manchester, and the restoration of its missing citizens. They will receive an extra 7.8 million. Other areas are less fortunate, however. Worcestershire will lose 1 million, and Norfolk nearly 500,000. The South Yorkshire police authority will lose nearly 1 million. Worst of all, Surrey will lose 2.3 million. On 25 November, the leader of its county council wrote this to the Minister:
	Under your proposals, Surrey stands to lose 2.23 million in respect of 200304, a greater loss than any other council in the country . . . Why should the people of Surrey pay for a mistake made by central Government?
	The hon. Member for Manchester, Blackley (Mr. Stringer) put it more robustly when he suggested earlier this year that the national statistician could not count up to 60 million.
	What justification can there be for asking council tax payers to pick up the tab for central Government's own blunders? Every year Labour promises a generous funding settlement for local councils, yet every year under this Government council tax has soared by three times the rate of inflation. This year the average council tax bill in England is over 1,000, an increase of 70 per cent. or almost 500 since Labour came into office. That is equivalent to almost 100 a month from people's take-home pay or pensions.
	The reason is simple: the Government have chosen to use the council tax for a purpose for which it was never intended. They have transferred burdens and duties to local authorities without resources. The council tax has become their stealth tax of choice.
	The Minister knows that what he has announced today will store up massive council tax increases for the future. His strategy for the council tax is now in tatters; all that remains is for the electorate finally to bury it in May.

Edward Davey: I thank the Minister for the statement, but I hope that his answers now will shed rather more light on what is actually planned. He suggested that there was new money for councils and for police and fire authorities, so that they can keep council tax down, but is it not true that, far from there being significant new money from the Treasury, most of this cash is coming from cuts elsewhere? Will he now list the cuts being made to fund this attempt to massage council tax downwards before the election?
	Is it not true that Departments from Education to Environment are the losers? For example, is it not true that cash has been found by reducing recycling? Every year we see a last-minute attempt by Ministers to patch the council tax problem. Does that not show a Government in permanent crisis over the unfair council tax? When will they act for the long term, scrap council tax and stop resorting to short-term panic measures?
	The Minister will doubtless claim that the extra money is not a pre-election fix. If so, can he confirm that it is permanent and not a repeat of last year's one-off grant? Does he not accept that, even if Ministers succeed in manipulating council tax rises lower than last year's, such rises are likely to be higher than inflation? Can he confirm that an average council tax increase of 5 per cent. will be nearly four times the inflation rate used today by the Chancellor? If so, what will he say to pensioners on fixed incomes whose pensions go up only by the rate of inflation? Can he confirm that all pensioners' council tax bills will rise by 50 a year at the very least? Will he also admit that by forcing councils into one-off raids of reserves and into putting off resolving issues such as pension liabilities, Ministers are merely scheduling a massive council tax rise for after the election? Is this not the calm before the storm?
	The Government know that the council tax system is in a mess; they wasted 15 months on the balance of funding review just to confirm that fact. Now, they have asked Sir Michael Lyons to sort out that mess, but by December next yearafter the election. Why, then, will the Minister not admit that this statement and the Lyons review are simply stop-gap holding measures to get Ministers through the election before they tell us what they really thinkif they win?
	We have heard today that the Government plan to reform council tax benefit to increase take-up, but do they really expect the House to believe that an advertising campaign will make any significant difference? Some 40 per cent. of pensioners fail to claim the Government's pension credit, even though many millions have been spent on advertising it. Does the Minister really believe that council tax benefit take-up will be any better than that for the pension credit?
	Will the Minister also explain why county councils in particular are being hit by this settlement? Why did he take the perverse decision to use 1991 census data for the 200506 grant? He knows that using 13-year-old data cost the counties more than 100 million, thereby adding 2 per cent. to their council tax bills. Why has he done that?
	On the police settlement, of which we do not know the full details, does the Minister not realise that pressure on police authorities from the rising pension bill is likely to make that settlement at best a standstill, and for authorities on the floor, a recipe for front-line cuts? Given the priority of law and order, can he not ensure that police authorities know his capping criteria in advance?
	Can the Minister also explain why he continues to favour businesses over pensioners? He has given businesses certainty in respect of the revaluation of non-domestic rates by capping increases. Why has he made no such commitment to fairness in the forthcoming council tax revaluation? Is it not true that lurking behind this statement is the huge threat of council tax revaluation? Why do the Government refuse to say how such revaluation will work before the election? Does the Welsh experience not show that millions of taxpayers will experience massive rises in their council tax bills if revaluation goes ahead?
	This is a pay now, pay more later settlement. Ministers have put off difficult decisions and are hoping for calm before a post-election storm; yet the council tax is so unfair that the storm is closing fast.

Nick Raynsford: First, I thank my hon. Friend, the well known and experienced Chairman of the Select Committee who knows a great deal about these issues, for his kind comments on the settlement. He has better experience of what a good, as against a bad, settlement is. He will be pleased to know that his own authorities, both Stockport and Tameside, are receiving grants increases of 5 and 4.9 per cent. respectively.
	My hon. Friend asked about the position of pensioners who are capital-rich but asset-poor. He raises an important issue, which I know is being looked into carefully by the Lyons review. Sir Michael Lyons is an expert in this field and we believe that it is right for the complex issues of local government finance to be considered very carefully before decisions are taken. I have the utmost confidence in Sir Michael Lyons and his ability to produce sensible suggestions to tackle the real problem that my hon. Friend has identified.

Alistair Burt: Does the Minister not realise that constituents will see the Government's further attempts to provide specific moneys to relieve council tax pressure at the expense of cuts in health and education as underpinned by a sense of guilt for the pressures they have placed on counties such as Bedfordshire? In recent years, that county council has suffered from extra costs, increased burdens from Government pressures, the transfer of moneys away from the shire counties to other places and problems stemming from the inability to use appropriate census data. Does the Minister not expect constituents to recognise cheats when they see them?

Bill O'Brien: I congratulate my right hon. Friend on his continuing support for local government. I would like to draw to his attention two sectors where pressures can be felt. The first is environmental protection and cultural services, for which the recycling of material and waste management are important; and the second is health and social care. Local government is looking for additional support in those respects and I hope that my right hon. Friend will continue to give his support to those units. Will he also take note of police service demands for additional funding to meet their commitments?

Adrian Bailey: May I thank my right hon. Friend the Minister for his statement. I welcome it and thank him for what appears to be a generous settlement for my borough of Sandwell. As the former finance chief of Sandwell under a Conservative Government, I can tell my right hon. Friend that I would have preferred to have to deal with the problem of real-terms growth under a Labour Government than with the real-terms cut that I had to deal with under the Conservative Government. Sandwell has historically been under-funded, so I welcome the removal of the ceilings in the grant.
	My right hon. Friend will also be aware that there is an issue with the police grant. While I accept that the announcement of that grant will be made by the Home Office, can my right hon. Friend reassure us that the same constructive principles that have underpinned this settlement are being actively considered by the Home Office for the west midlands police. We have had a win in Sandwell; we would like a win for the police and a true win-win situation.

Nick Raynsford: I am happy to confirm that it is a win-win situation. Sandwell council receives an increase of 6.3 per cent. in its grant, which will enable the council to continue to do good work while keeping the council tax down. I congratulate Sandwell on a low increase in council tax last year of just 1.9 per cent. Many other Labour councils secured low increases. I hope that other local authorities of different political persuasions will follow the good example set by Sandwell last year.
	The police general grant will increase by about 4.8 per cent. and, with specific grants added on top, the total increase will be 5.1 per cent. So there is good funding for the police and for Sandwell council.

Oliver Heald: Although I thank the Leader of the House for the debate on European affairs, he will know that I have asked for a general foreign affairs debate to allow us to discuss the situation in Africa and the middle east. When may we have such a debate?
	We all hope that an agreement will be reached in Northern Ireland. If so, can the Leader of the House assure us that there will be a full oral statement made to the House at the first available opportunity?
	Turning to the accountability of Ministers, the Committee on Standards in Public Life recommended that the Opposition should be consulted about those conducting investigations into ministerial conduct. Why have the Government refused to consult the Opposition on that issue? May we have a debate about ministerial accountability and the independence of such inquiries? Do not the Government realise that by ignoring the advice of the Committee that they set up, they are giving those inquiries a bad name?
	May we also have a statement about the granting of indefinite leave to remain to people working in this country? Andrew Walmsley, the former director of the nationality unit, with 37 years' experience in the Home Office, is quoted today as saying that he has
	never come across . . . a case . . . where somebody has been granted Indefinite Leave to Remain in the UK on the basis of them working here, but not having worked here for four years.
	Given the implication of that for the inquiry into the Home Secretary's conduct, is not it vital that the position is clarified?
	Will the Leader of the House widen out the subject of Thursday's estimates day? We all know about the failures of the Passport and Records Agency computer, the Child Support Agency computer, the national insurance computer and last week's disaster with the Department for Work and Pensions computers. Today it is reported that the national fingerprint computer system has suffered a huge crash, crippling many police investigations. Perhaps it is not by chance that the system is known as NAF, but does not it just sum up the incompetence of this Government? We have all these systems, but none of them works. How can the Leader of the House claim that we are safer under Labouras he often doesif the police cannot even check a suspect's fingerprints?
	Finally, how about having a debate on British retailing? It is bad enough that Christmas starts in October in many stores, but has the Leader of the House noticed that the January sales are now starting in the first week in December? Does not that show deep concern amongst retailers and is not the reason for it that the Chancellor's 66 tax rises are now biting hard into the earnings of ordinary people?

Peter Hain: The last point comes from a supporter of a party that, in its last period in office, increased taxes repeatedly on all sectors of the population. We have brought taxes down for the lowest income families, with a 10p tax rate that has particularly benefited them, working tax credit and child tax credits, and a series of other measures, including the national minimum wage, to assist hard-working families. My right hon. Friend the Chancellor announced further measures today, manyif not allof which would be cut under the extravagant 35 billion cuts programme announced by the shadow Chancellor earlier.
	I apologise to Conservative Front Benchers, as I have been making the point that their cuts amount to 20 billion, whereas, according to the shadow Chancellor, they amount to 35 billion, and that does not include the extra spending of 15 billion to which he committed himself as a result of his shadow Cabinet colleagues' badgering, which suggests that there is a 50 billion black hole in Conservative finances.
	The shadow Leader of the House requested a general foreign affairs debate on Africa and the middle east. As he will recall, only on Monday the Foreign Secretary made a statement on the middle east, which was well attended. Obviously, I would be as keen as anybody to have a debate on Africa, especially as it will be a priority measure for our presidency of the G8 next year, and we shall have a look to see what opportunity there is for that.
	The hon. Gentleman requested an oral statement, should there be a settlement in Northern Ireland. Yes, of course we would want to do that and I shall ensure that arrangements are put in place.
	In response to the request of the Committee on Standards in Public Life that the Opposition be consulted, the Government have made it clear that it must first be for the Prime Minister to decide whether an investigation is needed into a Minister that the Prime Minister appointed. If the hon. Gentleman were ever in government again, he would acknowledge that that is a sensible approach. In addition, it is important to choose an independent person to conduct such an inquiry, and I think that has been done in absolutely the right way. On indefinite leave to remain, the hon. Gentleman will know that the inquiry established under Sir Alan Budd will look at all those matters and at the wider issues that might arise.
	On extendingwidening out, as the hon. Gentleman put itthe estimates debate on Thursday, the subjects to be debated are chosen by the Liaison Committee. We cannot pre-empt that, so if the hon. Gentleman wants other subjects to be included, he should talk to the Chairman of the Committee.
	On the fingerprints computer, this is the first service delivery problem of its kind that the national automated identification service has experienced in its six-year history. The issue has not affected forces' ability to arrest and charge criminals and our first priority has been to restore forces' access to the national database. There will then be a full lessons-learned exercise to identify procedural and technical changes that will prevent that from happening again, but, as I said, this is the first time such a thing has happened in six years, so I do not think that the hon. Gentleman is entitled to make a meal of it.

Paul Tyler: Over the past hour it has become apparent that Members on both sides of the House are concerned about the police grant and the precept, and the gearing effect on council tax. We have not yet had a statement on that from the Home Office. When shall we have that statement, and will the Leader of the House give us an absolute undertaking that there will be an opportunity for a separate vote on that extremely important issue?
	In the Queen's Speech last week, the Government said:
	A Bill will be introduced to give effect to the Constitutional Treaty for the European Union, subject to a referendum.
	When will the House get an opportunity to debate the Second Reading of that Bill? In the programme that he has just announced, a whole afternoon is devoted to European affairs, so why cannot we have that Second Reading debate then? Is he aware that the Chief Whip has apparently already announced that Second Reading will not be debated before Christmas? I have the greatest respect for the Chief Whip, whose powers of persuasion are famousor infamous; indeed, last night, she managed to persuade Conservative Front Benchers to go into the Lobby with the Government to defend the Prime Minister and to say that he did not need to be more accountable to Parliament. That requires great powers of persuasion, but surely it is for the Leader of the House to decide and to announce to the House when business is to come before us, not the Chief Whip.
	Will the Leader of the House confirm that if the Bill makes no progress in this place before Christmas, and if the Session is interruptedperhaps next Aprilthere is no way in which the Bill will reach the statute book in this Parliament? Will he give us an absolute undertaking about when he expects the Bill to progress through the two Houses? Does he accept that there is a suspicion that the Government want some other EU member state to kick it into touch before we even get it on to the field in the House and in this country?

Clive Betts: Will my right hon. Friend organise an early debate on the proposed improvements to the baby bond for seven-year-olds that the Chancellor mentioned in his statement today? I should certainly want to make the point that, as at the beginning of this year, more than 1,400 children in my constituency will benefit from the bond. It would also offer Members who do not support the bond and want to scrap the scheme an opportunity to explain whether it would be scrapped only for children at a future date, thus meaning that only a handful of children would benefit from it for only a small number of years, or whether they intend to take back from children's piggybanks the bonds that have already been givensnatching money back from children to pay for the expensive introduction of a not-needed local income tax.

Peter Hain: I was going to say that, after the next general election, that would involve seven Labour Members of Parliament. I would have thought that the last thing to do was to call my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Skills stupid and to criticise him from making a stupid statement. He has presided over increasing school standards, the recruitment of more teachers and classroom assistants, more modern schools, the refurbishment of schools, the opening of new schools and more IT equipment, including in Derbyshire. He can be proud of that, and the hon. Gentleman should withdraw his outrageous accusation.

Julian Lewis: May I put in a word of support for the important campaign that the hon. Member for Nottingham, North (Mr. Allen) is waging to try to limit the activities of loan sharks?
	May we have a statement from the Minister for the Cabinet Office about reports of accelerated destruction of departmental files in many Departments in the run-up of the coming into force of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 on 1 January? That appears to be an extremely worrying development, but I am happy on this occasion to exonerate entirely the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster because, as he is spending so much of his time on non-departmental work on Labour's election campaign, I cannot imagine that he has developed any file worthy of being shredded?

Ben Bradshaw: That is not my understanding. My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Mr. Pearson) leads on fisheries issues for Northern Ireland, and he has been assiduous in keeping in touch with industry representatives in Northern Ireland. He was with me at the last November Council, and I believe that he met industry representatives from Northern Ireland at that time. We will continue to keep in close contact between now and the Council itself.
	Landings by the fishing industry are worth about 520 million to the UK economy. Landings at most ports are steady or up. The pelagic sector, which relies mainly on herring and mackerel, is doing very well, as is the shellfish sector. The importance of nephropsor prawns, as most people know themcontinues to increase as a proportion of the UK's total catch. Haddock stocks are higher than they have been for 30 years. However, some other species are still in decline or their stocks remain at dangerously low levelsmost notably, cod.
	The fish processing industry continues to go from strength to strength. In all, it is worth about 1.5 billion to the UK economy. I am pleased to reportnot least because of the benefits to our nation's healththat fish consumption in the UK continues to grow by about 1.3 per cent. a year.

Ben Bradshaw: I will certainly undertake to look into the hon. Gentleman's point. From the interaction that I have had with the Under-Secretary of State for Northern Ireland and his officials, I have not gained the impression that they do not represent Northern Irish interests strongly. However, I shall certainly consider the point about capacity that the hon. Gentleman raised and will ensure that we are engaged in this important work. It is important that the Administrations throughout the United Kingdom engage on the process, and that we move forward together on fisheries policy.
	It is against the background that I have described that, as well as wider concerns about our marine environment, the Prime Minister announced earlier this autumn his support for a new marine Bill.
	One more important review that reported during the last year would help to inform future policythe Bradley review of marine fisheries and environmental enforcement. It is important that all those reports and reviews have come together, because they provide policy makers with a once-in-a-generation chance to get the way we run our fisheries right. I wish to take this opportunity to thank all those who have played a role in producing all this important material. The challenge that we, the fishing industry and other stakeholders now face is to turn it all into policy.
	I should mention one or two other important developments this year before I turn to the details and our priorities for the December Council. Last month, I attended, in Edinburgh, the launch of the first of the regional advisory councils set up under the important reforms of the common fisheries policy agreed two years ago. The North sea RAC involves all those with an interest in the North sea, and it is already at work drafting recommendations on the management of the North sea area.
	In the European Union, the UK has been at the forefront of pushing for a decentralisation of the common fisheries policy and for a greater say at local and regional level for fishermen and other interested groups. We intend to make progress on the remaining RACs a priority for the UK presidency of the EU in the second half of next year. If the RACs prove themselves by coming up with realistic and responsible solutions to the management challenges that we face, I see no reason why they should not develop into real bodies for regional management.
	In the south-west of England, where I hail from, we are already seeing the benefits of the fishermen, processors, retailers, restaurateurs, anglers, environmentalists and scientists all working together to manage our fisheries in a sustainable way. Invest in Fish South West, launched by his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales in April with funding from my Department, is leading to an unprecedented level of co-operation among groups that in the pastlet us be frankhave not always seen eye to eye. The commercial fishermen, recreational sea anglers and environmentalists who, in the past, have had competing or conflicting agendas have come together in the realisation that we all have a shared interest in managing our marine resources in a responsible and sustainable way. The benefits of this co-operation go far wider than the fishing industry alone. Tourism and our regional food renaissance are already benefiting from the work of Invest in Fish South West. I hope that it can become a model for the rest of the UK.

Anthony Steen: I know that the Minister is doing his very best, and many of us realise that he is not quite King Canutewe know what happened to him; was he not washed away?
	The problem in the south-west is that more fish are thrown back dead than are landed in the ports. The Minister must agree that that is immoral and obscene. Does he not agree that the best way of dealing with that problem is to renegotiate the common fisheries policy, which he has failed to do? If that is the case, what is the alternative to our policy of withdrawing from the common fisheries policy, unless we are to go on throwing more dead fish overboard than we actually land?

Ben Bradshaw: No, I do not. Because of the many conversations and exchanges of letters that we have had on this subject, the hon. Gentleman knows that we will have to agree to disagree on it. There is no change in the European constitution on the competence on marine resources, as he knows very well.
	The Government's concern to manage our marine environment sustainably can be illustrated by a number of other actions we have taken this year. We secured permanent protection for the cold water coral reefs off the north-west coast of Scotland known as the Darwin Mounds. This followed the emergency protection that we secured in the previous year, which was the first time the EU used powers under the reformed common fisheries policy to give special protection to a valuable marine environment.
	The UK also led the way in persuading the EU to adopt, for the first time, measures to address the problem of cetacean by-catchthe catching and drowning of dolphins and porpoises in nets. These measures did not go as far as would have liked and the UK will continue to push for more action more quickly, but they are an important start.

Ben Bradshaw: The hon. Gentleman makes the argument about the common fisheries policy for me. If we did not belong to the CFP we would have no influence whatever over what the French did in their own waters or halfway across the channel, where most of the bass pair trawl fishery takes place.
	The first experimental marine closed area in Britain, around Lundy island off the north coast of Devon, has been a resounding success. The number and size of crab and lobster both inside and, more importantly, outside the closed area has grown significantly. My view has always been that closed areas, if supported by the scientific evidence, are likely to play an important part in our future management of marine resources. That is another subject that the UK intends to prioritise during our presidency of the EU next year, and my officials are already exploring the benefits of a network of such areas as part of the follow-up to the strategy unit report.
	This annual debate has traditionally concentrated on the commercial marine fishing sector in advance of the all-important December Council. However, as its title is Fisheries, it would be remiss of me not to acknowledge the important and growing role played by recreational angling, both at sea and in our lakes and rivers. Britain's most popular recreational pastime goes from strength to strength. The importance of angling, and sea angling in particular, has not always been recognised in the past, and I want to give anglers a greater say in how we manage our fisheries.
	The UK has remained at the forefront of international efforts to protect the whale. At this year's international whaling conference, we helped to resist attempts by Japan and others to lift the moratorium on commercial whaling. We will continue to work with like-minded countries and world opinion to stop the small handful of whaling nations and their allies trying to weaken the protection that those magnificent mammals enjoy.
	Turning to our priorities for the annual Council of Ministers meeting just before Christmas, as always, the UK's priority is to maximise opportunities for our fishermen while ensuring that fish stocks are not over-exploited. The latest scientific advice should mean that the Council can agree an increased total allowable catch for some stocks, including western monkfish and megrims, as well as west of Scotland nephrops, However, tough decisions are likely on stocks that are not doing so well, including plaice and sole in the south-west, cod in the North sea, the west of Scotland and the Irish sea, and sand eels.
	This year, my officials and I have gone to extra lengths to include industry representatives in discussions in the run-up to the Council. We will continue to keep in close touch with them until and during the meeting. That unprecedented co-operation helped to achieve a satisfactory outcome to the potentially difficult EU-Norway negotiations last week. It is unlikely that the industry will get everything that it would like out of the December Council, but I believe that the way in which we have worked together over the past year will make it easier for the UK to make a more robust and coherent case.
	Finally, during last month's Council meeting, I, along with my Scottish colleague, Ross Finnie, had the opportunity to meet the new Fisheries Commissioner, Joe Borg, on his first day in his new office. We had a wide-ranging and friendly conversation in which Mr. Finnie and I outlined to Mr. Borg and his officials our main concerns and priorities. I am pleased to tell the House that Mr. Borg accepted our invitation to visit the UK early in the new year.

Owen Paterson: I begin by paying tribute to fishermen who lost their lives or were injured last year. My figures show that 27 vessels were reported lost and 11 men died. In his statement, the Minister mentioned several more recent deaths. I extend our deepest sympathies to the families and friends of those brave men who put their lives at risk in order to supply us with a healthy and popular food. We owe them more than we are offering them todaya mere three-hour Adjournment debate jammed in at the end of the week, after two lengthy and important statements.
	The annual fishing debate used to take a full day, and it was intended to give the Minister a mandate before he set off for Brussels and the annual Fisheries Council. We are in no position to do that today. The only document available is a transcript of oral evidence taken by a Sub-Committee of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, chaired in his inimitable, colourful manner by the hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Mr. Mitchell). We have not seen the Commission proposals and we have no basis for a serious discussion. All we can do is wish the Minister the best of luck on 21 and 22 December.
	The Minister will be presented with a huge amount of material, much of it inaccurate and most of it out of date, and decisions of great complexity will be taken at very short notice. I urge him to keep the representatives of the industry in the loop. At last year's Council they were left alone and ignored in their hotels, and a settlement for the North sea was agreed without their advice. The details turned out to be totally impractical. I am not suggesting that they have a veto, as the Minister said in Questions two weeks ago, just that they be consulted on the practical consequences of any proposals that he may be about to agree to. Those men represent an industry that has been forced to accept huge reductions in capacity and opportunity in recent years, and with enlargement it looks as though the opportunities may be further reduced.
	Since last year's debate I have visited numerous fishing communities around our coastAberdeen, Peterhead, Fraserburgh, Shetlands, Whalsay, Ullapool, Stornoway, Plymouth, Brixham, Hastings, Folkestone, Scarborough, Whitby, and, most poignantly, Fleetwood, twice. Fleetwood has seen the number of vessels fall from 64 to 25. I met the manager of an engineering company who only 20 years ago employed 120 people. He now employs one fitter.
	I was told on my first visit about the high level of discards in the Irish sea and I simply did not believe it, so I returned two weeks later to see for myself. I spent the night of the 1415 October on the trawler Kiroan. In order to fish 22 days per month, 80 mm mesh must be used for plaice. If 110 mm mesh is used, Phil Dell, the skipper, told me, his days at sea are reduced by five and his business is no longer viable. We set off and I instructed him to set one trawl of his twin rig with 80 mm mesh and the other with 110 mm mesh.

Lawrie Quinn: I thank the hon. Gentleman for the courtesy of advising me that he was going to visit Scarborough and Whitby. I hope that he enjoyed his fish and chips in the restaurant of the vice-chairman of the Tory party in Scarborough.Has he embarked on any discussions with the land-locked or Mediterranean nations that he has just listed about applying the Conservative party's policy should it win the next general election?

Owen Paterson: I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman's comments about my visit to his constituency. It was a good visit and I thoroughly enjoyed it. We have a very fine candidate in Mr. Robert Goodwill, as he will find out when the election comes, and the fish and chips were indeed excellent.
	The answer to the hon. Gentleman's question is no; I have concentrated my efforts on going to fishing countries, as I am about to explain. I have been to places such as the Faroes, Iceland, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia and New England, where successful fisheries are run because there is national and local control.

Owen Paterson: That is a good point. I actually picked that up when I went to Brixham. The lesson from Brixham is the extraordinarily complex nature of the fishery. We must have seen 20 to 25 species in the fish market in the morning. That is why the quota system is unsuited to exploiting that resource. We should learn from other, more successful fisheries.
	We should set a broad national framework on the basis that we believe that the seas around Britain belong to the people of Britain and need to be managed in the interests of all the people. Aristotle said that that which nobody owns, nobody cares for. We would like national Government to set a broad framework, as the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act does in the United States of America. However, detailed management should be devolved to local councils. Rather than abolishing existing fishery committees, as the Government threaten to do, we would like them to be built on, expanded and extended.
	The Minister rightly paid tribute to the recreational sector. There are 1.5 million recreational anglers, with a turnover of 1 billion per annum. They should have the right to be consulted and have a real input in determining fishing management plans where there is significant recreational activity.
	The regional advisory councils, which the Minister mentioned and the Commission proposed, will be only advisory. He confirmed that to me in parliamentary answers. We would prefer genuine local control, establishing local management plans with teeth.
	We would scrap the rigid quota system and learn from the Faroes and New England, where days at sea limitation of effort has led to a striking increase in fish catches and biomass. In contrast to Britain, fishermen there trust and work closely with scientists, leading to better assessment of stocks. As my hon. Friend the Member for Totnes (Mr. Steen) said, the CFP does not take account of what is really happening. We have no idea of the amount of discards. By scrapping quotas, the incentive to discard and land black fish is eliminated.
	In Norway and Iceland, discards are banned. We would go further and make landing of all commercial species mandatory, as happens in the Faroes. The CFP cannot succeed, because discards and black fish mean that there is no accurate data. Much of the existing data are out of date. Accurate data must be the basis for more rational management decisions. We would follow the lead of the Faroes, Iceland, the USA and Norway and establish substantial permanent and temporary closed areas. The closed areas of New England alone are as large as the state of Massachusetts.
	We would insist on the use of selective gear. It is criminal that we allow haddock stocks that are at a 30-year high to go to waste in the North sea to protect cod. The centre for conservation sciences at Manomet in Massachusetts has achieved 81 per cent. separation of cod from haddock, and 90 per cent. separation of cod and haddock from flat fish. By raising the foot rope in the whiting fishery, it has achieved 100 per cent. separation of cod from flat fish. Only yesterday, I spoke to a senior executive at Marks and Spencer, which has a line of haddock. In trials, a cod by-catch of only 5 per cent. has been achieved by using intelligent, scientific gear.
	The Minister was recently humiliated by the Commission's refusal to listen to him about the slaughter of dolphins through pair trawling in the south-west. He was right to try to raise the matter but he was sent packing because we do not have national and local control. If we had such control, we would ban pair trawling out to 200 miles and we would work with Manomet and other excellent institutions such as the brilliant Sea Fish flume tank in Hull, where I spent a happy day on a trawling course, and devise a solution for separating dolphins from bass.
	To monitor days at sea, we would make vessel monitoring systemsVMStracking mandatory on all vessels. As in the Falklands and Iceland, we would expect instant radio reporting of untoward events such as unexpected numbers of juveniles or by-catch. In Iceland, a fishery can be closed in a couple of hours by radio broadcasts if a vessel has rung in to announce an excess number of juveniles. Let us compare that kind of reaction with the way in which the common fisheries policy is run: we have one meeting a year, whereas the Falklands and Iceland are running their fisheries in real time, on real information.

David Drew: My hon. Friend clearly shares my scepticism. Does he agree that one of the biggest problems of the CFP is that it has done nothing about industrial fishing? We have all these wonderful quotas and controls, and the system is supposedly there to deal with conservation; but outside it nations are ripping the heart out of our marine environment. I know that my hon. Friend feels strongly about that, but I thought he might want to comment on it.

Austin Mitchell: I am glad that my hon. Friend has made that point. There is still a substantial by-catch in industrial fishing. Danish industrial fishermen have been found to be catching white fish on a considerable and damaging scale, and the practice continues despite all the efforts of most other fishing nations and continuous condemnation that is echoed in every fisheries debate in the House. It is a scar on the face of the common fisheries policy, and it should be stopped.
	On the need to relax some of the draconian measures, the calculations of the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea are based on fairly old science, dating from 2003, and make no allowance for the huge reduction in our fishing effort, particularly in Scotland but also in England. Nor does it allow for the improvement, as has been pointed out, in the availability of haddock and monkfish. Yet instead of looking forward to a relaxation of such measures, the first indications are that policy is going to be tightened.
	The Commission is talking of designating closed boxes in areas in which 60 per cent. of cod is taken, including a spawning ground just off the Yorkshire coast. I should make it clear that the industry supports such closures, but not ill-considered, ill-defined ones that are imposed as a panic measure. Closures need to be made in consultation with the industry, which has practical experience of what is happening in such grounds. The industry certainly deserves to be consulted, and I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will oppose this substantial use of closed boxes. I hope, too, that he will ensure that cod conservation areas will be policed by way of licences to go in and take cod, rather than licences to go outside and take something else. The latter approach seems a very strange and anomalous one.
	I also hope that there could be some relaxation of the time-at-sea limitations. I remind the Minister that if the Government are not going to support the industry financially, they need to allow it to be as profitable as it can be in the current straitened circumstances. In other words, it needs more time at sea to make itself more profitable. But above all, we owe it to the industry to ensure more stable management routines. As the fishing organisations pointed out to us this morning, the indication in the summer was that a more consultative approach would be taken, and that the Commission would be more flexible and would produce an outline agreement in October, so that everybody could be involved in the process.
	Here we are in December and it is just like old times: we do not know what is going to happen or what the proposals are, and the figures have not been pencilled in. How can an industry that needs to move towards a sustainable future, and which needs investment and a sustainable employment pattern, plan ahead in these circumstances? It seems that a hard core of officials in the Commission want to carry on ruling by diktat and control. They do not trust fishermen, so they want a tightly regulated industry. Hence the talk of designating closed boxes, of effort limitation in the western channel in respect of soleunnecessary, according to the fishing organisationsand of further restrictions in the Irish sea.
	We want a sustainable industry that can think ahead and invest ahead, and which can provide steady employment prospects, rather than being subject to sudden changes in policy. In the past couple of years, it has borne the brunt of cutsmade necessary by the conservation crisisthat the common fisheries policy itself imposed. Yet other countriesFrance, Ireland and Spain in particularare still building their fleets. That building process is supposed to stop at the end of this year, but it is still going on. While we are drastically cutting our fleet, others are still building theirs in order to inherit the future. The industry needs a level playing field with our European competitors. It needs a level pattern of enforcement and the confidence that enforcement is as vigorous and effective there as it is here.
	We have been told that we face a further run-down by the strategy unit, but it is unreasonable to expect the run-down of the industry to happen unless it is managed and financed by the Government. Part of the original plan proposed by the World Wildlife Fund stressed the importance of investment in getting the industry from position A to an improved position B. It was about investing in the future. The strategy unit did not opt for that, but it should have.
	We face a real problem now and the threat to the English industry, particularly on the east coast, is serious. It looks as though one whitefish port is going to have to close. The threat is there and if it is going to be carried through with confidence, there must be proper management decision-making and compensation arrangements. If licences and entitlements are flowing out of the area to other areas that are doing better, we should try to keep them in order to maintain the essential critical mass that the industry needs to be viable. There must be some financial support for keeping the licences in the area.
	I understand that the Minister is strongly concerned about stability and we all agree on the need for it, so I am sure that he welcomes, as I do, the establishment of the regional advisory council. In passing, I want to say that I am still not reassured about how regional management conflicts with exclusive competence. We need to look into that matter very seriously.
	We all welcome the working group on demersal stocks, which the regional advisory council has set up. It produced an excellent report, which points the way forward. For too long, fishing in this country has been ignored by the Government, only to be restructured by liquidation when the British Government avoided responsibility. Under the Fontainebleau agreement, they would have had to make a major contribution, but they did not want to finance it. The Government did not draw on European funds in the way that applies to some other European countries, but they did not provide an alternative either. As far as the industry was concerned, it was a double whammy. That was the position in this country, and it was subsequently replaced by a system of draconian decisions from a panic-stricken Commission, desperately trying to clear up the mess that it had created.
	I have every confidence in the Minister's commitment to stability, stable management and moving towards a sustainable future. I hope that, in the forthcoming discussions, he will begin the process towards achieving that. We want an industry that works and the Minister is trying to develop thatall credit to him and all power to his elbowin consultation with the scientists. It is important to exchange points of view so that the two sides can understand each other. The gap between them has often been a crying shame. The industry should be brought into the regional management structures.
	The fishing industry must be listened to by the Commission and the Government. We must have co-operative management of fishing. For too long, it has been a hunting industry and it is crucial to bring it into a process of co-operation and consultation if we are to achieve the sustainable fishing future that we need. If we can work towards that goal at the forthcoming talks in Brussels, we may be able to stave off the worst of the threats of more draconian management from the Commission. We may then be able to start the turn-around towards the sustainable future that we all want.

Andrew George: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. With the benefit of hindsight, those who want to go into that issue may be able to learn lessons from that intervention. I have not had the benefit of the experience of the hon. Gentleman, but I am not sure that his interpretation of what would have followed is necessarily right.
	The hon. Member for North Shropshire said that the issue was a matter of political will, but the Major Government made it a matter of political will to take on Europe over the beef ban. Of course, we all know what happened on that occasion. One can have all the political will and optimistic outlook in the world, but it does not necessarily mean that one will winor achieve a better outcome for the UK fishing industry.
	The Minister said that he was likely to disagree with the Commission's proposals on several stocks for example, on sole in western area VII. The hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Mr. Mitchell) also mentioned that. I hope that the Minister will argue strongly for a review of the proposals from the Commission, as we understand them. Both the UK and French Governments, as well as the UK and French industries, are coalescing around an agreement that I hope will win the day on 21 December, because that would be helpful. I hope that within that we will have an agreement to increase mesh sizes for that stock, because of concern about the impact on the year classes.
	The hon. Gentleman also mentionedI am sure that others will also do sothe potential severe impact of the Commission's proposals on North sea cod. I am sure that the Minister will know that the UK, through the decommissioning scheme and other efforts, has substantially met the target of 65 per cent. effort reduction. I hope that in the negotiations the UK will therefore be in a strong position to argue for a beneficial outcome for UK fishermen in the North sea.
	The Minister also knows that the science on monkfish has never been accurate. The margin for error in the scientific advice is very wide, and the Minister recognised the need to revise the science and increase the quota for monkfish in area VII during a catch year. I hope that he will bear that in mind when he is negotiating the outcome for monkfish in area VII.
	I am delighted that the North Sea Regional Advisory Council has met and I hope that the Irish sea and the western approaches councils do so soon. Having spoken to some of the people involved in that meeting, I know that they want those advisory committees to take a proactive rather than a reactive role in their relationship with the Commissionto set the agenda for policy and enforcement in those regions, rather than merely to respond to the Commission's proposals. Some people suggest that the regional advisory councils should be de facto management councils. I strongly endorse that and hope that the Minister will do all he can to ensure that they operate in that way, as many of us want.
	There is significant disquiet about the precipitate way in which closed areas have been defined. As the Minister knows, for many years there has been agreement in the industry about a closed area in the Trevose head region of the Bristol channel, but that has taken a lot of scientific work and discussion with the industry. There is concern that the co-ordinates for the closed areas of the North sea have been somewhat snatched at rather than carefully considered and subjected to consultation. Although we want to pursue a closed areas policy, and to put a greater emphasis on that type of approach, it is important that proposals are soundly based.
	On UK matters, the Minister has largely endorsed the proposals in the Bradley report for a significant change in the role of sea fisheries committees in England and Wales and their amalgamation. Will he clarify his views on that point? Sea fisheries committees are a classic case of If it ain't broke, don't fix it, certainly in my constituency area. There are separate committees for Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly, which work extremely well and are appropriately intertwined with the industry. There is good partnership in the area and the byelaws that the committees draw up can be closely and carefully inspected, due to the local nature of the committees' operation. I hope that the Minister will consider those issues carefully rather than rushing headlongI hope he will notto endorse and implement some of the proposals in the Bradley report.
	I was disappointed that the Queen's Speech did not mention a marine Bill. Although such a measure would deal with many aspects apart from fisheries, many people in the industry, as well as those concerned about the marine environment, would like some consolidating legislation. That includes the sea fisheries committees, which largely operate under laws passed in the Victorian era. Such legislation needs both updating and consolidation, so I hope that the Minister will take that point on board and that there will be proposals for a marine Bill to bring all those aspects together in the not-too-distant future.
	I congratulate the Minister on bringing in the welcome ban on pair trawling in the 12-mile zone from the beginning of November. I encourage him to continue his negotiations with his European counterparts, especially the French, over pair trawling in the western waters and the channel. I know that the French deny that their industry has a significant dolphin and cetacean by-catch, but I have spoken to several academics working with Brest university who are confident that there is sufficient evidence to show a connection between the French pair trawling industry and strandings on the west Breton coast. I hope that the Minister will look carefully into that matter and press it home very hard indeed.
	The Minister will also be aware that, around some coasts, there is a strong argument for the establishment of voluntary codes with regard to gill nets and cetacean by-catches, particularly of the harbour porpoise. I am pleased to say that, for example, in the Cornish fishery, significant progress has been made in Mounts bay and St. Austell bay, where the voluntary code that has been established between the wildlife trust and the industry is working well.
	Some important issues have been raised in the debate today. Obviously, we are concerned as Members of Parliament that we have been given an opportunity to debate these issues before we have seen the Commission's proposals. I hope that the Minister will consider allowing us a further opportunity, either later this month or early in the new year, to review the decisions made, so that we can make further progress. I hope that the Minister will take those issues on board.

Eddie McGrady: I wish to associate myself with the Minister's remarks regarding the tragedy of Colin Donnelly, who was one of my constituents, as well as the other fishermen throughout the UK who have lost their lives. Indeed, slightly earlier, three generationsgrandfather, father and sonwere lost in one incident in my constituency. It was one of the greatest tragedies that I have ever known, and it highlights the horror that can result from the unpredictability of earning one's livelihood at sea.
	I shall resist the temptation to enter into the international debate about the CFP and various other things. I simply wish to concentrate very briefly on a couple of matters that directly affect the negotiations that are about to take place and that will impinge on the fishermen of my constituency and the North Down constituency from January nextjust a few weeks away.
	First, I should like to deal briefly with the total allowable catches and the quotas. It seems from the information that I have received that the jury is still out on what is happening to Irish sea cod, whiting and haddock, but we would like to be assured that improvements will result from the negotiations. However, for plaice and, to a lesser extent, Irish sea sole, the scientific evidence has reversed. Whereas last year the evidence indicated a serious decline in the number of plaice, the same scientists now say that it is on the increase. Therefore, I should like the Minister to take that on board when he negotiates the TACs and quotas for that catch.
	The most important catch on the County Down coast that I represent are nephrops. That catch has reduced in real terms over the past four years by 24 per cent.almost a quarterbecause of the quota system. It has been reduced from 23,000 tonnes to 17,500 tonnes. The reduction was introduced not because of a scarcity of nephrops, or prawns, but because of the allegation that there was a considerable by-catch of Irish cod. I wish to say two things about that.
	First, fisheries scientists now estimate that the prawn stock in the Irish sea is three times the size that they had previously estimated. Secondly, as a result of the DEFRA-sponsored fishery science partnership, observers on local vessels have indicated and proven that the by-catch, particularly of cod, from the nephrops fishery is, in their terms, minimal. In view of those two factors, will the Minister ensure not only that there is no further reduction in the TAC or quotas for nephrops in the Irish sea, but that there is an increase?
	The hon. Member for South Antrim (David Burnside) mentioned The Hague preference, which continually works to the disadvantage of Northern Irish fishermen. There has been a regime over the years whereby the Ministers in the north and south or in London and Dublin exercise a swapping process. Swapping quotas with the Irish fishing industry south of the border has proved to be beneficial. Those two fishing industries for the island of Ireland can see one another fishing. The border between them is in my constituency. Carlingford loch, which is probably the only water border, is not even a mile wide. To have one regime on one side of it and another on the other is nonsense. The Hague preference greatly militates against Northern Ireland fishermen in that respect.
	At last December's round of talks, the Council introduced effort control at sea. Northern Irish fishermen were given additional days at sea to compensate for the closures. It is our understanding from the European Community that they will not get those additional days if there is a closure this year. We are also getting indications from our spies at the EC that if the Minister presses strongly enough and negotiates hard enough, we will get those additional days if the closure restrictions are introduced. I leave him with that thought, to gird his loins in terms of that negotiation.
	The Irish sea cod closures are now into their fifth year. There have been all sorts of effort controls, including additional technical conservation measures, fishing vessel decommissioning and a plethora of presumably laudable and necessary restrictions on catch. However, there is no evidence of those having any meaningful effect in restoring stocks. Local fishermen are wondering whether over-fishing is causing the problem or whether environmental change is a primary factor in the decreasing stocks of particular species in particular areas, which has been discovered in fishing areas outside the UK. Perhaps the Minister will take that on board in his review.
	I like to think that the Minister will, in the remaining time before he sits down at the negotiating table, consult more intimatelyif that is the right word to usethe Northern Ireland fishing organisations. There is an opinion that they were excluded from the higher echelons of consultation for the first time, in 2004. They have always had a close relationship with the Fishing Minister in the north and the Fishing Minister in Westminster.

Alex Salmond: It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for North Down[Interruption.] I am sorry. It would have been a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for either Down, but it is certainly a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for South Down (Mr. McGrady). I will follow his example by spending the latter part of my speech on specific practical matters. The Minister said that he was a pragmatic Fisheries Minister; I am a pragmatic Opposition Member, and my uppermost concern in these debates are the immediate issues that face my constituents and the industry that depends on the catching of fish. I shall devote some time to the politics, but I will want answers to my specific points.
	I do not agree with Members who have suggested that this is the wrong time for the debate. We have a very good idea of the proposals that will come forward. We know what the Norwegian talks have thrown up and we know, roughly at least, what the Commission's proposals might be. In so far as the Minister chooses these things, he has chosen the right time for the debate. I hope that he will keep us informed as the talks go on. The hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Carmichael) made an excellent point, and perhaps the Minister will even prevail on the Leader of the House for a statement as the talks progress. Would it not be interesting if the subject of fisheries was considered important enough to have a statement on the Floor of the House? The Minister could inform us of progress, and we could have a debate.
	I am sure that the Minister will want to provoke a debate on the outcome of the negotiations. This year I provoked a debate in Westminster Hall to examine the unintended consequences of last year's fisheries discussion. I hope that we will not have the same unintended consequences this year, but it is important that the Minister, having chosen the right time for this debate, keeps us informed on the progress of the negotiationsI know that he will be anxious to do thatand comes back in January for a debate on their outcome. It is time that we accorded the subject the importance that it deserves.

Alex Salmond: I remember going with my hon. Friend to see the Fisheries Minister, and I know that he was keen to see the designation of a number of ports. I am unhappy to hear that Arbroath was not properly designated; it should have been. It is a vital port, and the industry that flows from the fresh haddock catch there is also important.
	The unintended consequences illustrate the nature of the common fisheries policy. If the Minister goes to negotiations, as he did last year, and is suddenly confronted with a range of maps and devicessome of which had not been seen before and had certainly not been consulted on with the fishermen themselvesthe negotiations are bound to produce unintended consequences, which is the euphemism for their effects on people trying make their living. For the communities that depend on the catches, they are a disaster.
	That is no way to run a fisheries policy. The CFP is inherently flawed, because it does not confer a sense of ownership. Any resource policy needs a direct form of ownership, without which there is only a loose incentive for conservation. Any fleet under pressure will decide that if it does not catch the resource, another fleet will do so, and deplete the resource. The result is competition between fishermen in an essentially competitive industry, and competition between fleets. Without a common thread of ownership, fisheries policy is deeply flawed.
	The CFP is the only attempt at common resource ownership in the European Union. I noted that in the Chancellor's statement today oil revenues came to the rescue, enabling him partly to fill the black hole in his calculations. Unfortunately, the Prime Minister is busy spending that largesse on wars, and the Home Secretary wants to spend it on identity cards. None the less, oil has come to the rescue. Can hon. Members imagine what would happen to the Chancellor's already furrowed brow if the EU declared that oil was to be an exclusive competence of the European Commission? Instead of the revenues coming to the aid of the Chancellor, they would go to the aid of the Commission. There would be explosions at the Dispatch Box if such a suggestion were made about the oil resource, but that is what was given away in the resource of marine fisheries 30 years ago.

Michael Jabez Foster: Is the hon. Gentleman not aware that the Prime Minister has set up the strategy unit on fishing, which has now reported? This is the first time, perhaps for decades, that the fishing industry has had such a targeted approach from No. 10.

Alex Salmond: Of course I am aware of that. I welcome the hon. Gentleman to a fisheries debate. If he came to more of them, he would know what I am aware of. The Prime Minister's strategy unit was somewhat flawed by its inability to count the vessels in the Scottish fishing fleet. We would have had more confidence in the strategy unit if it had been able to count the number of boats that we have, never mind forecast the decline, which it then projected forward. That caused a huge amount of irritation in Scotland.
	I was interested in the debate in the European Fisheries Committee, which by 24 votes to nil, with four abstentions, attacked the exclusive competence of the fisheries policy in the proposed European constitution as anomalous and unjustified. Two of the Portuguese members of the Committee wanted to go further in their amendments. The impression given by the Governmentthat everybody else throughout the European Union is comfortable with the fisheries policy, and it would be an impossible negotiation to try to get something fundamental done about itis misleading. There is deep dissatisfaction in many member states with that policy of despair for many, many fishing communities across Europe.

Alex Salmond: The point is well made. I do not think there is any chance of Norway, Iceland or the Faroes joining the European Union if the Union tries to maintain exclusive competence over fisheries. If we look at the European constitution, we can see just how ridiculous the position is. There are four exclusive competences in the EU, in addition to the competition laws necessary for the single market to which Lady Thatcher signed us up. The first three are: the customs union, which was the very foundation of the Common Market; common commercial policy, without which there could not be a European Union; and monetary policy, for member states whose currency is in itthe Government, who criticise others for wanting to opt out of the common fisheries policy, are happy to continue almost indefinitely opting out of monetary policy, which seems to me slightly more fundamental to the future of the EU than the fisheries policy. Lastly, there is the conservation of marine biological resources under the common fisheries policy.
	That is ridiculous. It is an anomaly from the past, dating from when the competence was signed away in 1971. There is massive dissatisfaction, and if there had been an ounce of political muscle in the negotiations, making fishing a priority, it could have been removed from the list of exclusive competences. The great benefit of that would be that when the Minister spoke about regional advisory committees becoming management committees he would have some basis for the argument, because even the doctrine of subsidiarity does not apply to the exclusive competences of the European Union under the constitution. We would be in a much better position.
	I shall have many chances to argue those points further in connection with my Fisheries Jurisdiction Bill, which I intend to reintroduce. I am grateful to the many hon. Members who supported it, and I understand that more Conservative Members would have supported it if I had not argued for national control for the nations of the UK. I hope, however, that they will overlook that aspect and that there will be even more support for the Bill when I reintroduce it.
	I want to ask the Minister some pragmatic questions that are important to my constituents and those of other fisheries Members. We have heard from a number of hon. Members about the prawn fishery. The obvious conclusion that we must draw from the new scientific examination of the prawn stocksin some ways, it is the first proper such examinationis that they are massively greater than has hitherto been suspected. The quota increases suggested could be called niggardly in comparison, and a fundamental re-evaluation is needed.
	Of course, one of the reasons why prawn stocks are so healthy is that the cod are not eating the prawns. In a complex marine fishery, the interaction between fish and other marine species is of fundamental importance. The Minister kindly lent me a book on the history of codI have yet to return it, but I have read it and I shall give it back to him shortly. It is relevant in this context. We have a fisheries policy that Herr Fischler, at least, was trying to run as a cod policy in which it seemed that virtually every other species in the sea had to be subservient to cod; it was a case of the ultimate one-club golfer. Unfortunately, the results are disastrous. Instead of giving people other fishing opportunities to take the pressure off cod, they were denied such opportunities and efforts were relocated elsewhere, doing damage to other species.
	The North sea is a mixed fishery, and the effort level applied in respect of the white fish fleet is a similar issue. If over-fishing explains the state of cod stocks, how can it be that we have low cod stocks in some areas, but record 30-year-high haddock stocks? There is a mixed fishery, with fish swimming in the same sea, pursued by many of the same boats, yet one stock is at a record high, while the other is low in certain areas. That tells us that there is another explanationa deep environmental explanationwhile the commissioner has refused to consider the matter seriously in any significant way.
	Haddock are at a 30-year high. If the Faroese were running haddock policy in the North sea, the quota would be 150,000 tonnes. After the Norwegian talks, we are talking about a possible reduction of the quota.

Bob Blizzard: I want to say a few words about long-lining, which is an environmentally friendly and sustainable fishing method. I do not believe that long-lining is responsible for the devastation of fish stocks. When my hon. Friend the Minister goes into bat for us in Brussels, whatever further restrictions may be necessary on species such as cod, will he ensure that long-liners are excluded from them, because I cannot see the harm that they do to fish stocks? Long-lining is a labour-intensive form of fishing and supports more jobs per fish caught than many other methods.
	The main reason why I wanted to catch your eye this evening, Mr. Deputy Speaker, is to follow through on a point that I made at Environment, Food and Rural Affairs questions only a couple of weeks ago. The problem concerns pay levels at the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science. CEFAS employs the scientists on whom we rely in order to hold today's debate. The Minister has kindly undertaken to look into the matter, and so that he can do so with an understanding of the scientists' point of view, I want to appraise him and the House of the current situation at CEFAS, which is highly unsatisfactory.
	CEFAS is an Executive agency of DEFRA. Its headquarters is in Lowestoft, the largest of its three sites, and it has two other sites at Weymouth and Burnhammy hon. Friend the Member for South Dorset (Jim Knight) supports my remarks. CEFAS employs 530 people, about 300 of whom are based at Lowestoft. Although the scientists do more than concentrate on fishing, we rely on them for accurate information on fish stocks, various species, factors affecting breeding, fish health and the whole marine environment. Every year in this debate, someone says, Our policies must be based on sound science. Without those scientists, we could not formulate a fisheries policy. Without the help and advice of our scientists, my hon. Friend would, in effect, go into bat in the Fisheries Council wearing a blindfold. If we respect what those people say about fish stocks, we should respect what they say about pay, which is a problem. Until a few years ago, all the scientists worked for the old Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, and although CEFAS is an agency, its staff still work closely in partnership with DEFRA. If hon. Members table a question, and in particular a detailed question, on fisheries, it will be sent to CEFASprobably to Lowestoft in my constituencyfor the answer. CEFAS is part of the machinery of Government. It is not privatised and is not a contractor that is paid special rates for specific jobs. CEFAS staff receive different levels of pay from core DEFRA staff. For example, the difference between the minimum points on the pay scales is between 2,750 and 7,000 a year. At the maximum end of the scale, the difference is typically about 3,000 a year.
	Worse still, although core DEFRA staff can progress through those scales to the maximum of the pay band over a period of, say, eight to 15 years, there is no progression system for CEFAS staff apart from leaving the entry range after one or two years. Those scientists tread water with no hope of reaching the maximum. The pay at CEFAS is quite low. Graduates start on 15,000, while those on exactly the same grade in core DEFRA start on 21,451. Nothing highlights the problem more than that.
	When I took this matter up before, I received a reply from the Minister for Rural Affairs and Local Environmental Quality, who said in a letter dated 27 October that the agency arrangements
	enable more 'freedoms' to create the necessary degree of flexibility to allow operational accountability for the organisations delivering the service
	and give them flexibility in their pay arrangements to align them appropriately to the services that they exist to provide.
	It is said that the agency has the opportunity to go out and win extra non-Government work in the private sector to enhance its income. CEFAS knows that, and does so, but the fact remains that 82 per cent. of its income still comes from DEFRA. If one includes the other Departments that it works for, 91 per cent. of its income comes from the Government.
	CEFAS is not paid in any competitive, contractual wayit simply gets a block payment from DEFRA each year to do whatever DEFRA wants. In effect, CEFAS is part of DEFRA and has to respond as part of the civil service, so if something needs doing, it has to do itit expects and accepts that. It does not have the freedom to pay the rates that it would like. If, in a good year, it earns more income from other sources, it is not free to distribute that in a pay rise because there is a Treasury cap that means that it can do so only if the Treasury agrees to itrather a hard thing to get it to do. It cannot even plough those extra earnings back into the business in any form because any surplus has to be paid back to DEFRA.
	CEFAS is in a trap, and it is not surprising that its staff are unhappy. That is showing up in retention problems. About 70 staff have left in each of the past four years. There is a move towards a transient work force rather than the stable community of committed scientists that we need to do the job. Management recognise that they have a problem and currently pay what they call recruitment and retention allowance to 33 people, amounting to 67,000 a year in total. Of course, that creates disparities within the organisation and is not a particularly transparent method of solving the problem. That creates tensions and ill feeling, which are not good for team building.
	Staff surveys at CEFAS have shown that pay is the main problem. I am told that a review just carried out by a Mr. Ken Crossland found that pay is the most significant source of staff discontent and that the laboratory is finding recruitment and retention a growing problem. Last September, the staff held a ballot on whether to accept a pay offer. It was rejected by 91 per cent. of members of Prospect and 97 per cent. of members of the Public and Commercial Services Union. Ballots on strike action or action short of a strike came out two to one in favour of strike action. One union came out eight to one in favour of action short of striking, with the other union four to one in favour of such action. These are moderate scientists with no history of militancy; the fact that they are voting for strike action and action short of striking shows how they feel.
	I mentioned that a review of the DEFRA agencies is taking place. Will my hon. Friend the Minister use that to examine the problem of these scientists' pay and try to sort it out? CEFAS deals with intellectual property, and its success depends on the quality of people's minds. I put it to the House that troubled, unhappy minds do not make for a successful organisation.

Ben Bradshaw: I hesitate to reopen this debate, but the hon. Gentleman is making some important points. The UK would be negotiating not only from a position of isolation but from a position of having narked off every other country with whom we were hoping to renegotiate, while at the same time not having any say whatever in the common fisheries policy that will govern many of the seas in which our fishermen have an interest.

Alan Reid: The Minister makes a very important point.
	I want to make some important points about my local fishery in the west of Scotland. The prawn fishery is now the most valuable fishery available to the Scottish fleet. There is universal scientific agreement that prawn stocks are healthy. It is true that in certain areas, at certain times, there is a cod by-catch that is more than negligible. That cod by-catch should be avoided by area access restrictions at certain times of the year, rather than by quota restrictions, but as long as prawn fishing vessels avoid certain designated areas at certain times, the cod by-catch when fishing for prawns is only negligible.
	The published scientific data show that the nephrops total allowable catch for the west of Scotland could be increased by 30 per cent. without any risk to stocks. The EU's Scientific, Technical and Economic Committee for Fisheries has taken a cautious approach and advised that an 11 per cent. increase in TAC would have no adverse effect on either prawn or cod stocks. I urge the Minister, in the negotiations, to ensure that the Commission heeds the scientific advice and increases the west of Scotland nephrops TAC by at least the cautious 11 per cent. recommended by the committee.
	Another problem that is being caused to fishermen in the west of Scotland relates to the annexe V restrictions, which apply to nephrops fishermen. The Clyde Fishermen's Association has pointed out to me that those regulations cause them a great deal of problems and inconvenience, yet the benefit of the regulations to cod stocks is miniscule. I urge the Minister to try to persuade the Commission that the west of Scotland's nephrops fishery should be exempted from the annexe V regulations, which achieve nothing and cause a great deal of problems.
	In the long run, we need to move away from the annual negotiations and horse-trading in Brussels towards regional management committees, but for this year at least, we are struck with the horse-trading. The Clyde Fishermen's Association has asked me to pass on its appreciation of the interest that the Minister has taken in his consultations with the fishing community, and I hope that he will achieve in negotiations the nephrops quota increase and the lifting of the annexe V regulations. If those gains can be achieved, it will be a welcome relief to struggling fishing communities in the west of Scotland.

Michael Jabez Foster: I can only suggest that the hon. Gentleman should carry on voting Labour.
	Even within the context of the under 10 m sector, I can offer a third thank you to the Minister. I thank him for setting up the process whereby following the report of the Prime Minister's strategy unitas I have said, that constitutes the first involvement of No. 10 for many yearsmeetings have been arranged between representatives of the under 10 m fleet and DEFRA, in my area at least. Such dialogue will undoubtedly lead to better understanding, at the very least.
	The strategy unit report recognised the need to protect small fishing communities, notI acknowledgebecause they were of massive economic importance in themselves, but because in many such areas the wider community depends on their survival. That applies very much to my constituency. Why would one want to visit the town of Rye and its harbour if the harbour were not kept open for fishing? Why would one want to go to Hastings old town, but for the net huts and the charm of the boats on the beach? While small fishing communities are important for historic and cultural reasons, they have a wider economic value in their wider community.
	What can be done? As the Minister will know, for cod fishing purposes the eastern channel is bizarrely treated as part of the North sea. The idea of Hastings and Rye being on the North sea is certainly bizarre. Perhaps my first request should be for a more realistic attitude to the way in which the European areas are zoned: there is a particular reason for that in the eastern channel.
	My fisherman constituents firmly believe that the eastern channel is overstocked with cod. As has been said, area VIId is treated as part of the North sea for cod stock assessment purposes, and TAC cuts in the North sea apply to that area as well. However, the validity of that grouping was based on work done by the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science back in 1964under another Labour Government, true, but many decades ago. My constituents say that that historic calculation is no longer valid. They believe that the cod are of a different stock from those in the North sea, and that the eastern channel cod are particularly plentiful. Indeed, it is impossible not to catch them.
	Therefore, fourth thank you is due to the Minister for his agreement to look again at the science relating to the eastern channel. He has now approved a new research project which CEFAS will undertake to identify and quantify the stock. I do not know how long that survey is likely to take, but I welcome the Minister's initiative and hope that the outcomes will be known very soon. If they justify my constituents' belief that area VIID should be separated, my constituents should be allowed to fish in a way that is more appropriate to the available stock. In the meantime, while the issues are under review, alternative arrangements will be necessary. It is simply impossible for my constituents to survive on the small cod catches that their current licences permit.
	For the past two years, the small boats in the eastern channel have not even caught the quota permitted for their sector, due to the over-restrictiveness of the licensing conditions imposed on their individual catches. Of course, my hon. Friend the Minister has sorted things out for this year, but we need to do something for the years to come. Incidentally, this procedure is not necessarily covered by European law. Other member states, which need only to estimate the under 10 m catch, do just that. There is no regulation requiring small limits and licensing conditions for such fleets. The Minister has therefore made a wise decision in suspending the licence conditions for this year-end period, thereby perhaps enabling the catching of something nearer the permitted quota. But does he agree that next year, it would be helpful to come up with a different scheme from the very beginning?
	As I have pointed out, a monthly limit of 750 kg for a boat with a crew of one equates to a weekly wage of 66. If the boat is unable to take its monthly quota because of the existing conditions, even that income is lost. My constituents therefore propose that the monthly allocations be scrapped altogether. The cod fishery could be left open and unrestricted until all the channel quota has been caught. It also seems reasonable that the eastern channel share of the cod quota be separately determined, given that 67 per cent. of fishermen who target channel cod are based in that area. I think that the Minister can rely on the good sense of my fishermen constituents to make the quota last through to the year's end. I certainly hope that he takes that point on board in respect of next year's arrangements. Indeed, is it really necessary to have a licensed quota at all for these very small boats?
	It is believed that the French do not rely on cod to the same extent as fishermen in the eastern channel. Although this is never an easy task, could the Minister, in this the year of the entente cordiale, speak to his French counterparts and persuade them to surrender just a little of their unused quota?
	Finally, I should point out that my fishermen constituents have been cruelly deceived, in that they have been told that it is somehow possible to abandon the common fisheries policy, which they wish to do, without leaving the European Union. They are indeed happy to leave the EU, but I wonder whether the Minister knows of any other nation among the 25 EU nations that could negotiate abandoning the CFP without leaving the EU altogether.

Alistair Carmichael: Other Members have remarked on the fact that this is merely a three-hour debate. That is undoubtedly true, but for my constituents and for the fishing industry in my constituency, it is probably the most important three hours in the parliamentary year. I am therefore very grateful to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for allowing me to take part yet again in such a debate.
	Unfortunately, unlike the hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Mr. Mitchell)he is not in his place I cannot boast a long pedigree of participation in such debates. In fact, this is my fourth such debate, and I do detect a slight improvement in tone this year, and perhaps a feeling of cautious optimism among Members representing fishing constituencies. I wrote down the phrase cautious optimism while making notes during the debate, but on mature reflection it was perhaps a gross overstatement. For my part, it might be more accurate to say that I do not feel quite as pessimistic as in recent years; hopefully, that is an indication of movement in the right direction.
	Of course, such feelings might simply reflect the fact that this debate is being held at an earlier point. Come 8 December, when we know the full extent of the Commission's proposals for the industry, we might feel very differently. However, I thank the Minister for responding to my earlier intervention by saying that those of us who represent fishing constituencies and the associated industries will have further opportunities for dialogue with him and his officials.
	The Minister must be aware of the need to involve fishing industry representatives throughout the whole Council processa point discussed at the last DEFRA questions, which I want to re-emphasise today. As proposals and counter-proposals emerge, the industry's views must be sought and listened to. It is not a question of giving anyoneeither fishermen or conservationistsa veto, but the fishermen must be heard in the course of the process. If that had happened last year, I remain convinced that we would not have been left with a system that, for white fishing in the North sea, verged on the unworkable. We spoke last year about unintended consequences, and we found ourselves in June unpicking some of the unintended consequences of things that could have been done better in December. I certainly hope that that lesson will have been learned.
	The Minister referred in his speech, and it was echoed by others, to the establishment of the North Sea Regional Advisory Council. Given that it was part of the Fisheries Council from 2001, if not 2002, it is fair to say that its establishment was long overdue. The Minister will accept that it also remains the subject of a fair degree of scepticism among the fishing industry. Having said that, I am pleased to see that it is now up and running and I take the view that the council has made a good start. In particular, its working party on demersal stocks has produced an excellent provisional opinion, to which both industry representatives and conservationists have been able to sign up. The important point is that the Commission and the member states must listen to the views expressed. If not, the fishing industry's current scepticism will be felt to be justified. Frankly, I could not dispute that particular analysis.
	There has been concern for some time about the science and I hope that the regional advisory councils will be able to make some progress in that regard. It seems incredible that, at the end of 2004, we are still using figures that are more than 12 months out of date. The data on which next year's decisions are being made, taking us to the end of 2005, will be almost two years out of date by the time they are finished with.

Alistair Carmichael: Well, that might be seen as vengeance, as Scotland nearly closed the Tory party permanently. I shall read the Conservatives' Green Paper with some care to see what the hon. Gentleman thinks would be achieved by such closures.

Alistair Carmichael: Well, we have had many fishermen pushed out of Orkney and Shetland, but I do not think that any of them have got as far as New England yet. I am interested in the hon. Gentleman's thinking on the issue. It is just the question of permanency that causes me some concern. I appreciate that some areas would be closed permanently and some temporarily and I do not dismiss the suggestion out of hand. I am pleased to hear that the hon. Gentleman has at last come round to the idea of greater local involvement, something that the Conservatives in government were notable for resisting.
	I wish now to revisit the hardy annual of the monkfish quota. We seem at last to have reached a stage where the Commission accepts that the science was not as robust as it might have beena euphemism almost as big as speaking of unintended consequences. I hope that we have the opportunity to get back to the 1999 level of quota for the UK. Given that it is unlikely that any further effort will take place, because of the reductions in the size of the fleet and the quota restrictions, this is a real opportunity for the viability of the fleet to be improved. I enjoin the Minister to resist any suggestion that any permit arrangements should be attached to any quota. I suggest that there will be a need to leave the area to the west outside the cod recovery zone and to open an area in the north North sea, as was done in 2003, to enable vessels to catch the improved quota.
	I also ask the Minister to strive for an improved quota for haddock in areas VIa and VIb, west of Scotland and Rockall. With regard to Rockall, it is essential that the European Unionperhaps the Minister could take a lead on thismeet the Russians and agree a quota that reflects the proper level of UK interest in that fishery. Otherwise, I very much fear that we will be squeezed out in that area as we were squeezed out of deep water fisheries a few years ago.
	As other hon. Members have mentioned, there is also the unfinished business of the nephrops quota, for which so much was promised and so little unfortunately delivered last year. The Minister goes to the Council with the good wishes of all of us on both sides of the House. The departure of Franz Fischler as the Commissioner presents an opportunity to improve our fisheries management and how we are dealt with. I hope that the Minister is able to seize that opportunity with both hands.

Lawrie Quinn: It is an honour to follow the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Carmichael). Normally in these debates I resist the temptation to take up the full time allowed to me and I often give up one or two minutes to him, so I am pleased that he has been able to make a full contribution today. We are continuing in a good tradition, as the penultimate and ultimate speakers before the ministerial response.
	The hon. Gentleman is a great champion of his fishing community. I respect him for that, as do many people in my part of the fishing community. I associate myself wholly with his closing remarks and his best wishes to the Minister.
	I shall outline briefly three issues that I should like the Minister to consider in his work at the forthcoming ministerial Council, but first I want to associate myself with the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Waveney (Mr. Blizzard) about fishermen's missions. I am sure that everyone in the House would want to pay tribute, too, to the work of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, which is a solid part of the fishing community, many of whom belong to the RNLI and go out to help members of not only their local community but the wider maritime community. They do tremendous work on a voluntary basis.
	I want to single out my hon. Friend from down the coast, the Member for Great Grimsby (Mr. Mitchell), for his chairmanship of the all-party fisheries group, which is persuaded to do many things. Recently, we heard the Canadian fisheries Minister and only this morning we received extremely good briefings from fishermen's organisations. Regrettably, however, we have never had the opportunity to listen to the hon. Member for North Shropshire (Mr. Paterson), so I hope that when the Conservative party publishes its green paperwith costs, we hopethe group can have a friendly, comradely dialogue with him, to follow the good work done by my hon. Friend the Minister and, in the past, by my hon. Friend the Member for Scunthorpe (Mr. Morley), now the Minister for the Environment and Agri-environment, to engage not only with us in a parliamentary sense but also with the key stakeholders who represent the community.
	Over the past year, my hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby has had a marked effect on the all-party group and has persuaded us to do many things to promote fish and the fishing industry. I do not know whether to say that I am glad or sad that a few months ago we were invited to enter a competition to display our culinary skills as part of a wonderful week for the promotion of sea fish. Regrettably, we came last, although my hon. Friend produced a remarkable concoction as a celebration of our right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister.

Alistair Carmichael: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising the subject of industrial fishingsomething that is having an impact on more than fish stocks. The seabird stocks around Shetland have been absolutely decimated this year, and there is no doubt in my mind at all that the blame lies at the door of the industrial fishery.

Owen Paterson: An interesting Royal Society for the Protection of Birds study was recently published on the impact of such activity on sea bird populations. In addition, we need to recall that sand eels are a key food source for cod. Without getting too excited about our upcoming Green Paper, we will advocate drastic reductions in the practice of industrial fishing, even if not its elimination.

Ben Bradshaw: With the leave of the House, I shall respond to the debate.
	One or two hon. Members asked whether it would be possible to meet me between the publication of the formal advice from the Commission next week and the Fisheries Council. I am happy to do that. Perhaps we will make informal arrangements, either after the debate or in ensuing days, to discuss the issues that they want to raise.
	I am glad that the hon. Member for North Shropshire (Mr. Paterson) is beginning to flesh out the Opposition's policy on fisheries. The Conservative party's Green Paper on fisheries will be one of its most hotly waited for policy documents for a long time. I look forward to seeing it.
	I do not want to dwell any longer than is necessary on the central plank of the Opposition's policy of withdrawal from the common fisheries policy, but I noted the recent comments by a former Conservative party chairman, Chris Patten, who in October said:
	If you decide to repatriate fish policy, are you going to depend on our fish being taught to swim only in our territorial waters? Is this the real world?
	I also noted an excellent article, which I commend to all hon. Members who have an interest in fisheries, by the right hon. Member for Skipton and Ripon (Mr. Curry), who, as I am sure hon. Members will remember, was the Fisheries Minister for four years under the previous Conservative Government. He speaks with great authority on the subject and recently wrote in the Yorkshire Post that he believes that the Tory policy is unwise and undeliverable. He went on to address, as the hon. Member for North Shropshire did not, some of the concerns raised by the hon. Member for St. Ives (Andrew George) and others about the possible cost of unilateral withdrawal. He asked the intriguing question of how much of the Royal Navy we are
	willing to deploy fighting a fisheries protection war against our European NATO allies.
	Those are good, important and interesting questions, which I am sure the hon. Member for North Shropshire will address in his much anticipated Green paper.
	The hon. Gentleman raised a detailed problem, which he has mentioned to me before, about the situation in Fleetwood. My hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool, North and Fleetwood (Mrs. Humble) very much wanted to participate in the debate. It is the first time she has missed a fisheries debate, but she is hosting a Select Committee visit to her constituency today. She passed her concerns on to me.
	There has been some misunderstanding. There is always a problem in finding technical solutions to mixed fisheries. The vessel cited in The Daily Telegraph article and by the hon. Member for North Shropshire has, of 16 November, used 128 days this year, which is well within the 17 days a month allowed for vessels that use meshes of more than 100 mm. There is no reason why that vessel should not use 110 mm mesh rather the 80 mm that it used when he was with it.
	The other aspect of the hon. Gentleman's contributionI also look forward to reading about this in more detailis that he is moving towards an effort control system as the best way of managing our fisheries, which is the Faroese system rather than the Icelandic system. I am particularly interested to know how a complete effort control system would work in the North sea, for example, and what impact it would have. I am sure that he and other Members realise that if we adopted the Faroese system in the North sea, it would mean a dramatic cut in effort and have pretty catastrophic impacts on fishing industries and boats in the constituencies of most of the Members present.
	As usual, my hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby (Mr. Mitchell) spoke with great authority and experience on this issue. I know that we disagree on some aspects of it, but I was pleased to hear that he described the publication of the Prime Minister's strategy unit report as a turning point. That is right; it shows a real commitment from the highest level to the future of the fishing industry.
	While my hon. Friend was speaking, I could not help thinking that, a few years backI think at a Labour party conferencehe changed his name by deed poll to Mr. Haddock. It is about since that date that we have seen a miraculous recovery in the haddock stocks. Perhaps I might suggest that he considers changing his name at the next Labour party conference to Mr. Cod. We will see what happens to the cod stocks. However, I take the points that he made seriously.
	My hon. Friend and a number of other Members were slightly unfair about Franz Fischler as a commissioner. He had a certain robust style, but it is not an easy business to chair an annual Fisheries Council meeting. His heart was certainly in the right place on the need for reform. He saw through reforms of the common fisheries policy against pretty fierce resistance from some member states. He shared our vision of a sustainable and profitable fisheries policy for the future. The new commissioner will have a different style, and we will work closely with him and, I hope, to the benefit of the UK industry.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby asked whether we could relax this year. Compared to some of the very difficult Councils that we have had in recent years, the background to this one is a little easier. I do not think that we can open the floodgates at this stage, but, as I said in my opening remarks, I think that we will be able to make progress on some stocks and that the fishing industry will welcome that. Although there are signs of cod recovery, it is from a very low base. However, I am determined to do what I can in those areas where the science justifies our taking action. I take on board my hon. Friend's concerns about the proposals for a cod protected area, the details of which I have not yet seen. The issue was also raised by several other Members.
	My hon. Friend requested greater certainty for the industry. We are trying to move towards that with the multi-annual approach that was adopted in the reform of the common fisheries policy. We certainly want to embed that, and it will be one of our priorities when we take over the presidency of the EU in the second half of next year.
	As usual, the hon. Member for St. Ives spoke with great authority, representing, as he does, Cornwall, which is one of the main fishing areas in England. He expressed frustration with the annual timetable of the whole process, and I share that frustration. I discussed the issue with Commissioner Borg at our meeting, and I think that it is a frustration he shares. If parties here and the industry would like to push for changes to the timetable, I think that we are pushing at an open door with the new commissioner. I shall certainly take that issue on board.
	I acknowledge that we disagree with some of the recommendations that we expect to be made by the Commission. They include the recommendations on western channel sole. The hon. Gentleman is right to suggest that the United Kingdom has been working very closely not just at official level but through representatives of the industry to come up with an alternative plan for western channel sole. We hope to make further progress on regional advisory councils during our EU presidency and will continue to push for that.
	The hon. Gentleman mentioned the Bradley report. There has been a certain amount of misreporting and Chinese whispers in what I may or may not have said about how we intend to implement the recommendations in the Bradley report. I reassure the hon. Gentleman that we have not made any decisions yet. I recognise the important work that sea fisheries committees do, and everyone agrees that we need to modernise the way in which we manage and enforce our inland fisheries. Whatever system we adopt, I want to try to retain the local expertise and democratic accountability that the sea fisheries committees bring with them.
	The hon. Gentleman should not be too disappointed that a marine Bill was not in the Queen's Speech. There was never any realistic prospect that it would be in this Queen's Speech, but the fact that the Prime Minister is explicitly committed to a Bill as soon as the legislative programme allows is a good sign. I and my colleagues in DEFRA will work to make sure that it happens as quickly as possible.
	The hon. Member for South Down (Mr. McGrady) has apologised for the fact that he cannot be here because he has to take a plane back to his constituency, but he made a number of points that I promise to take up and bear in mind. He gave me some good advice about negotiating tactics that might benefit his fishermen in Northern Ireland. He made an interesting point about climate change, as did others, and the role that it might play in changing the habits of fish stocks. There is certainly evidence that, with global warming and changing sea temperatures, stocks are moving around. Stocks that were formerly further south in UK waters are moving up, and cod seems to be moving north. However, we must be careful about using climate change as an excuse to avoid addressing the problem of over-fishing. We must take all the factors that affect fish stocks into account if we are to have a successful and sustainable fisheries policy.
	I congratulate the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Mr. Salmond), as this is the first time that we have faced each other in the Chamber since he resumed the leadership of his party. I shall, of course, keep him informed. In fact, for the first time this year, we have allocated a senior DEFRA official to keep the fishermen informed during the Council. It is difficult for me as the Minister to do so or, indeed, for Mr. Finnie, because we are trapped in the building. We never know when the commissioner is going to burst into the room and ask for a bilateral, or when a Minister representing another country will want to hold one. We cannot leave the building, and the fishermen cannot come to see us, but we shall certainly keep in as close contact as possible. Personally, I intend to meet industry representatives during the Council if possible.
	It was slightly unfair of the hon. Gentleman to say that Governments have not given priority to the fishing industry. I hope that he acknowledges that the strategy unit report was a major sign that the Prime Minister was worried about what was happening two years ago at the Council, and wanted to get to grips with the problem for the medium and long-term future. I agree that there is a case for fighting for an increased TAC on prawns, and I agree with the hon. Gentleman about haddock. On monkfish, he will probably be aware that a joint industry-science project has helped to secure improved data, and we will argue for a substantial increase in the Council negotiations in December.

Ben Bradshaw: I am terribly sorry. I have four minutes left, and if I do not rattle on I will not be able to respond to all the comments made by hon. Members.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Waveney (Mr. Blizzard) made a good point about long-lining, which I shall certainly take on board, as there is enormous potential for a more sustainable fishery. I shall also look into his comments about CEFAS, which does a terrific job. Talks to try to resolve the problems that he raised are imminent, and I shall shortly meet the new director of CEFAS, when I shall certainly reiterate the points that he made. The hon. Member for Argyll and Bute (Mr. Reid) made some good points about the cost of leaving the CFP, and I agree with him about west of Scotland prawns. The issue has been raised with me a number of times by my hon. Friend the Member for Western Isles (Mr. MacDonald), and we certainly intend to pursue it as a priority in the Council negotiations. I also accept the point made by the hon. Member for Argyll and Bute about annexe V and the difficulties that it has caused his fishermen.
	I consulted the Shetland fisheries representative, Hansen Black, at the Council meeting in Brussels last month. I accept what the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Carmichael) said about haddock permit problems, and am pleased that he welcomes the progress on regional advisory councils. As I have said, we will make further progress on that. I made clear to the new Commissioner the importance of listening to the RACs, as it would be politically fatal not to do so just as they are becoming established. I believe that that is a good argument to use in the negotiations.
	I accept the point about the new funding system made by my hon. Friend the Member for Scarborough and Whitby (Lawrie Quinn). I am always keen to have debates on fisheries, but the decision is not just up to me; other people, such as business managers, are involved. My hon. Friend is right about industrial fisheries, and he will be pleased that, given their condition, there are likely to be recommendations for severe cuts. It has always been the UK position to support such a proposal.
	Finally, my hon. Friend the Member for Hastings and Rye (Mr. Foster) said that I had brought him some pre-Christmas cheer. It always good to be able to do so, but I do not think that I have ever been described as a fishermen's friend before. However, I will accept compliments wherever they come from. I am rather disappointed that he did not invite me to open his new quay, but perhaps there is still time. As for what he may want in his Christmas stocking next year, I understand that my officials are talking to his fishermen tomorrow about that very issue.

Ordered,
	That Standing Order No. 83A (Programme motions) be amended, as follows:
	(1) in paragraph (6) leave out 'three' and insert 'four';
	(2) in paragraph (8) leave out 'a resolution of a programming committee under paragraph (5) of Standing Order No. 83B (Programming committees) or'; and
	(3) after paragraph (9) insert:
	'(9A) The fourth exception is where the motion relates to a resolution of a programming committee.'.[Mr. Watson.]

Ann Widdecombe: I am grateful to have secured the Adjournment debate tonight. It concerns a matter of vital importance to my constituents. I am delighted to see in the Chamber with me my hon. Friend the Member for Faversham and Mid-Kent (Hugh Robertson), whose constituents will also be profoundly adversely affected by the proposed changes to hospital services in Maidstone.
	Let me set the scene. Maidstone is a large general hospital that was built under the Conservative Administration in 1983. It was modern and covered a wide range of services. Since that time, the oncology services have been vastly expanded and the hospital is now recognised as a centre of excellence for oncology in the south-east. Until a few years ago, the picture was a fairly happy one, but since 2000 there has been a consistent stream of proposals toI can put it in no other termsplunder Maidstone.
	Over the past two years, we have been raided. We have already lost, in a fairly stealthy way, almost without anybody noticing, our chronic pain unit, which has charged down the road to Pembury. That leaves citizens of Maidstone, who were used to having pain services available, with pain services available only by means of a four-hour round trip on the No. 6 bus. It is scarcely an ideal situation for people without private transport.
	Earlier this year, a proposal that had been made in 2000 and rejected was raised again. It would mean our losing the most important chunk of our accident and emergency services to Tunbridge Wells. In addition, there is a proposal that we would lose a major part of our obstetrics services, again to Tunbridge Wells.
	The Government decided to merge trusts. It is impossible to imagine that when Maidstone was its own trust, it would have volunteered to lose services and suggested that they wander off 17 miles awaythat is the shortest possible distance. But because the trusts of Tunbridge Wells and Maidstone have been merged into one large trust, there is no unique voice, other than mine and that of my hon. Friend, speaking up specifically for Maidstone.
	If there were unavoidable strategic reasons for the changes, I might admit that there was some force to the argument for bringing them about, but close examination suggests that that is not the case. One of the reasons why that has been advanced is that the changes all stem from the European working time directive, which means that junior doctors cannot work the hours that they used to. We therefore have to recruit more junior doctors, and when that proves impossible, we have to merge services, so that where there were two services before, we shall have only one.
	We have also been told that the consultants involved approve the changes. I shall quote from a letter from Mr. Christopher Walker, a consultant orthopaedic surgeon who worked at Maidstone hospital from its opening in 1983 until August 2002, and still does occasional clinical work. He says this of the proposal to take trauma services to Tunbridge Wells:
	Most importantly, the road access to the Kent and Sussex Hospital is poor when compared to that of the Maidstone Hospital. Maidstone is well placed to receive trauma rapidly having both good access to the motorways and a helipad. Indeed, in my time at Maidstone I received a badly injured motorcyclist who had been involved in a road traffic accident about one mile from the Kent and Sussex Hospital, as it was quicker to transfer him to Maidstone AE . . . than to get a traditional road ambulance to take him at peak time to the Kent and Sussex AE.
	He goes on to say:
	If Trauma Services are moved to Tunbridge Wells, Maidstone patients will need to access another AE. The Kent and Sussex would be very difficult for them to reach.
	He says that they would be more likely to go to the Medway accident and emergency department, which is already under massive pressure.
	Mr. Walker identifies as a further effect of the proposed move
	a downsizing of emergency services in general and a move of staff and facilities from Maidstone to Tunbridge Wells.
	He says:
	Trauma Services cannot be managed successfully by Orthopaedic  Trauma Surgeons in isolation. Support is essential from other specialities especially General Surgery, Vascular Surgery, Anaesthetics, General Medicine and Paediatrics. Presumably adequate support could only be given by transferring support in these specialities from Maidstone to Tunbridge Wells.
	As a consultant surgeon, he takes the following view:
	I believe this would have the effect of reducing Maidstone AE to a minor injuries unit, as well as reducing the Consultant and Junior Staff numbers at Maidstone, so further disadvantaging the local population.
	Mr. Walker is not alone in taking that view. Another consultantthis time a consultant physician currently practising at Maidstone hospital, where he is also a clinical tutorcontends that the proposals will have a serious effect not only on trauma services, but on training. He makes this point:
	The Acute Services Review of 2000 concluded that trauma services should remain at both Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells. It is the proposal to change this conclusion at this stage that has caused considerable disquiet.
	He says that
	the proposal to downgrade the trauma service . . . will impair access to appropriate care for patients from the Maidstone area who sustain a fracture; and . . . it will adversely affect Maidstone hospital as a general hospital and training institution . . . Removing trauma services from Maidstone matters for the hospital as a whole principally because it will reduce the capability of the AE department.
	He goes on to say:
	The Senior House Officer posts in AE are accredited for training by the Royal College of Surgeons. It is uncertain if that accreditation would remain . . . if no major trauma came to the department . . . A hospital unable to offer the full range of experience will have difficulty in recruiting the best trainees, particularly those whose career plans might include surgery or critical care.
	He adds:
	A hospital lacking a full AE department would struggle to be taken seriously as an acute general hospital.
	I fully understand that point, even from a layman's point of view; the hospital would not be taken seriously as an acute general hospital, and it would find it very difficult to recruit and retain consultants in acute specialities, particularly general medicine and critical care.
	Perceptively, that consultant goes on to say:
	The real problem with the current discussion is that it puts the cart before the horse. We are discussing individual services without any clear vision for the future of the hospital as a whole. There is a clear vision for cancer services in Maidstone, and there is a comprehensive vision for the new hospital in Pembury
	for which I am grateful
	but for non-cancer general hospital services in Maidstone, however
	he puts this politely
	the future is more opaque.
	The future of Maidstone general hospital is a major question. Will it remain as a serious general hospital or will all its major general facilities be moved gradually and piecemeal to Tunbridge Wells, while Maidstone is promoted as Kent's answer to the Royal Marsden hospital? Is that the future that is envisaged? If it is, why do the Government, the trust and the SHA not come clean and let us know? It would cause my constituents massive disquiet?
	For maternity services, consultants have stated that the European working time directive is not causing problems in obstetrics, but that difficulties will be created in recruiting serious consultants and doctors to a unit as small as the one proposed for Maidstone. Confronted with that massive reduction, the general expectation is that mothers will choose other hospitals. At the moment, 25 per cent. of mothers transfer from the birthing centre to the labour ward with difficulties. If the labour ward is 17 miles away, consultants claim that brain damage could be caused to babies.
	I have also mentioned the loss, which we have already sustainedalmost without anybody noticingof the chronic pain unit. It was moved in September 2004 from Maidstone to Pembury. The first that the patients knew about it was a letter a couple of months earlier. Openness appears to have given way to at best opacity, and at worst secrecy. What is the future, and what is the vision for Maidstone as a general hospital?
	Earlier, I said that it had been claimed that the consultants accepted the necessity for that disquieting decision. In fact, however, 50 senior clinicians have signed a letter to Rose Gibb, the chief executive of the trust. This is not a politician speaking; these are clinicians:
	We believe the proposed cuts at the Maidstone hospital to be dangerous, ill-advised and unnecessary. They will place acutely ill patients, particularly the elderly and children, at additional risk of morbidity and death by transferring them to an inaccessible and less suitable site. The loss of this acute service will result in the inevitable haemorrhage of essential skilled staff. We feel the knock-on effect on the remaining acute services will lead to their progressive erosion, reducing Maidstone to an elective hospital only.
	Among the consultants who signed that statement are those in general surgery, anaesthetics and critical care, cardiology, medicine, neurology, ophthalmics, oncology, paediatrics and, of course, obstetrics and gynaecology. That is the view of those on the ground who actually have to deliver the service.
	When I fully recognised the problems and their scale, I wrote to the Secretary of State for Health, who replied promptly but unhelpfully. Essentially, he told me what I already knewthat there was a consultation exercise. Yes, I had got that far. He then told me that there were proposals to reconfigure servicesI had certainly got that farand that it was a matter for the trust. This goes beyond just being a matter for the trust. There is, I believe, a serious crisis of confidence in Maidstone about the future of a large and well respected general hospital.
	On behalf of my constituents who live at the other end of the constituency, I am of course delighted that at last, after too many years, we are getting a brand-new hospital; I would not want any of the comments that I have made today to be taken to mean otherwise. However, the original plan was that essential services such as trauma and obstetrics should be available in both centres, not that there would be a share-out of some sort, as of eggs in a basket.
	My first question for the Ministerwho has, I am sure, been in contact with the trustis this: what is the future for Maidstone? Will it remain a general hospital? If so, will it be taken seriously as a general hospital, given the changes that are mooted? Or will it simply become an elective surgery and cancer specialty? Secondly, as so many consultants are so worried, how can the administrators of the trust decide that this is the right way forward?
	Thirdly, may we have an absolute undertaking that if services such as the chronic pain unit are to be moved in future, there will be a proper and full consultation? Interestingly, when one of my constituents rang the local press, the people there did not know anything about that particular movebut they certainly know about the trauma services, and they are making a fuss.
	Although in such circumstances there is always a fine line to be walked, between alerting one's constituents and alarming them, I myself have become alarmed by the proposals. I believe that they should be abandoned, and that the original decision taken in 2000 to retain services in both hospitals should be maintained.

Melanie Johnson: I appreciate the right hon. Lady's view, but both hospitals will continue to provide the bulk of acute surgical, medical, emergency and life-saving care for patients and each will need accident and emergency departments capable of dealing with minor and major illnesses and injuries. I am told that the strategic health authority has categorically stated that Maidstone hospital's accident and emergency department is not closing down or being run down.
	I appreciate that issues such as training hospital consultants and doctors, and accreditation by the royal colleges need to be sorted out. That needs to be done locally to ensure that the mix of cases that goes to both hospitals is capable of sustaining the right accreditation by the royal collegesfor example, for accident and emergency accreditation purposes. I understand that the chief executive has met the majority of the consultants individually or collectively.
	We do not deny that some concerns have been expressed. They have centred around the misconception that all the surgical services would be transferred to the Kent and Sussex hospital. Some consultants were also worried that there might be pressure on them to express certain views. Notwithstanding that, some have genuine concerns about the future. We accept that concerns have been expressed, but I assure the right hon. Lady that the strategic health authority is committed to two full accident and emergency departments in the two district general hospitals and sustaining the mix of services.
	The right hon. Lady mentioned the transfer of the chronic pain clinic. I am not familiar with as much of the detail as I suspect she is. I understand that some 600,000 of additional resources have gone into the clinic at Pembury hospital, to which it is to be transferred. Extra investment has gone into that pain unit, and I am sure that that creates an improved service. We accept that we need two accident and emergency units and two district hospitals. The question is about the division of some of those areas of specialty, which can be provided principally in one or another of the hospitals.
	In the past few years, Maidstone hospital has had major investment in its eye, ear and mouth unit. There has been some 11.9 million of investment. The hospital has received 2.8 million for a new breast care centre; 2.2 million for a new emergency care centre; and 1.7 million for the orthopaedic unit. In Tunbridge Wells, the Pembury hospital and the Kent and Sussex hospital have received 3.5 million investment in more doctors; the chronic pain unit that I mentioned; some refurbishment of the maternity unit; and 1.15 million for a new MRI scanner. That shows that there has been a division of resource between the two sites.
	The right hon. Lady talked about the pressure on junior doctor hours as a result of the working time directive, but there is a wider rationale. That rationale includes the following considerations: to improve the quality of services for patients; to reduce the number of cancelled operations, as currently one in five elective procedures are cancelled in Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells, which the trust and the strategic health authority are looking to improve on; to reduce the risk of infection by segregating all orthopaedic patients from surgical patients, which is highly important; and the development of on-call rotas that offer consistency of care. Among all the other factors are the fulfilment of the requirement to meet junior doctors' working hours under the European working time directive, and gaining efficiencies of full day-care elective theatre lists to reduce waiting times for patients. The provision of centres of excellence for patients, which offer and are able to meet national standards of care and to attract highly skilled staff, is also important. Making the best use of the consultant work force, with sub-specialisation, is also a factor.
	The benefits for patients that the trust and strategic health authority are looking for are: ensuring that booked operations are not cancelled; reducing waiting time for operations; reducing the risk of infection following surgery; delivering rapid assessment, out-patient, diagnostic and day-case services at both hospitals; and ensuring that professional standards are consistently met. That shows that a rationale exists that makes clear the reasons for this discussion.
	Currently, we have only a proposal before us, and I realise that, sadly, the right hon. Lady did not appreciate my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State's letter. I gathered that. He was being very fair in what he wrote to her, however, as he was pointing out that this matter was still up for discussion, and that the details need to be thrashed out. I understand that such discussions raise a lot of local anxieties, and I sympathise with local MPs and local people concerned about them. I have set out a number of powerful and important reasons why it is necessary to examine these issues, including the benefits that can be gained for patients from improvement of patient care.
	I want to touch briefly on maternity services, because I want to assure the right hon. Lady that we are committed to good-quality, women-centred maternity care. We have a commitment to improving maternity services by modernising maternity units, increasing the number of midwives and giving women greater choice in childbirth. There have been huge advances. It is now much safer to give birth, and women are now actively involved in making decisions about the maternity care that they want to receive. As I am sure she is aware, we published a national service framework on 15 September, and under the standard, NHS maternity care providers and primary care trusts are required to ensure that the range of antenatal, birth and post-birth care services available constitutes a real local choice for women, including home births and midwife-led care, and midwife-led units in the community or on a hospital site.
	Additional funding has been made available for refurbishments, including of hospitals in Kent, to improve the environment. I hope that the right hon. Lady will agree that we all recognise that hospital services need to change if we are to continue to fulfil patients' needs and improve access. Services cannot remain static. They must be responsive to local needs and changing patterns, higher standards and the different services that can be provided as modern medicine advances. That is what we are seeking to achieve through the changes that are being implemented.
	The matter in hand is still a discussion on a proposal, and I trust that the right hon. Lady will be able

Melanie Johnson: I cannot envisage anything. I was blessed with neither a cup of tea leaves nor a crystal ball. The dialogue must continue, however, so that all the parties are reassured about what the outcomes are. There cannot be a huge difference
	The motion having been made after Six o'clock, and the debate having continued for half an hour, Mr. Deputy Speaker adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.
	Adjourned at ten minutes to Seven o'clock.